


War of the Daughters

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Series: Detective al Ghul [3]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M, Kate Beckett is Talia al Ghul, Miranda Tate is Nyssa al Ghul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: When she witnesses Bane’s attack on Gotham City, Kate Beckett must return to Gotham to try and aid the city’s natives against a threat with a deeply personal connection to her past...
Relationships: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Detective al Ghul [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701526
Kudos: 1





	1. Return of the Caped Crusader

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU take on 'Dark Knight Rises', beginning shortly after Batman's return to action in 'Rises' and starting somewhere between 'Undead Again' and 'Always' for Kate Beckett; hope you like it

Walking into the precinct, Kate had to admit, things were going fairly well for her. Things between her and Castle were finally starting to get back to normal after that earlier unexplained distance he'd suddenly started putting between them, she was feeling comfortable in her job and the task facing her once again, and she liked to think that her therapy was coming along well (The last might not be an exact science, but her counsellor had assured her that things were going well).

Still, at the rate things were going, she wouldn't say no to a few quiet hours in the not-too-distant future; maybe she'd get lucky and just be able to catch up on some work without worrying about murder today...

Staring at the morning newspaper that had been lying on her desk, Kate's train of thought was cut short as she took in the headline before her.

 _Dark Knight Returns_?

She might have hoped that Bruce Wayne would return to the role that had forever changed Gotham City- even after so many years and the public slandering of his name, Kate Beckett remained proud to be one of the few people in the world who knew who Batman was under the mask-, but that didn't mean that it didn't disturb her to consider what kind of situation would merit him going back into action after so long.

Quickly, she started reading the story underneath the headline, her eyes scanning rapidly over the article as she picked out the most relevant and interesting information. According to the paper, an unknown man in a mask had attacked the Gotham Stock Exchange before he and his men had departed, their motives and objectives in mounting such an attack a mystery, resulting in a high-speed chase that had been interrupted by the Batman. The pursuit had ended inconclusively- apparently the police had pursued Batman into an alley where he'd escaped via an aerial vehicle of some kind-, but that still left the question of the unidentified masked man to consider.

Despite the discouraging nature of the mystery of the masked man's agenda in such an unusual attack- stocks might be the more obvious currency in today's increasingly electronic world, but they were also rather difficult to actually _steal_ in a manner that you could use-, Kate had to admit that she was actually happy to read the article; after so long hearing virtually no news about Bruce Wayne beyond the fact that he was apparently hanging around in his manor and letting all kinds of strange rumours circulate about his current appearance and personal habits, it was refreshing to see him actually _doing_ something with his life.

Of course, now that Kate thought about it, after the mood he'd been in the last time she'd seen him- coupled with the sheer lack of public activity he'd shown since those dark days with the Joker's rampage through Gotham-, that did raise the question of what was serious enough to prompt him to go back into action after this much time...

For a moment, Kate was tempted to drop everything and head over to Gotham to see if there was anything that she could do to help, but quickly pushed that thought aside; Bruce might have been out of the game for a while, but she had to have faith that he wouldn't have become Batman once more if he didn't think that he could handle the situation at hand.

He was one of her father's best students- if not _the_ best student he'd ever trained-; even if his enemies were above what the conventional law enforcement agencies could deal with, he could handle a few overly ambitious thugs...


	2. Family Update

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story takes place about a week after 'Always', and a bit over two weeks after the last chapter (I'm assuming that SOME time elapsed between Bane's theft at the stock market and his and Bruce's subsequent rematch; it's not like exact times were provided, and it would have to take a while for the stock market to register what Bane did to Wayne Enterprises' stock prices, after all)  
> For reference, when I say 'Nyssa', I'm referring to the version of Talia played by Miranda Tate in the films; Kate is the Talia of this world and always will be.

Sitting at the table in Castle's apartment, the man in question currently out getting some food, Kate couldn't believe how quickly the time had gone by.

One week since she had resigned from the NYPD after her failed attempt to capture the last known link to her mother's killer... one week since she had realised what was really important to her... one week since everything had changed...

Her life was currently in a state of complete upheaval, and Kate Beckett couldn't recall when she'd last been happier to have no idea what to do with herself. Her future employment possibilities were still a complete question-mark, of course; so far she and Castle were in the early stages of their new relationship, Kate enjoying the need not to get up early for work while Castle alternated his time between finishing off what was probably his last Nikki Heat novel and spending time with her, as well as some moments with Alexis- although these were relatively limited given his daughter's interest in exploring her future college-, but that wouldn't last forever, and she had no immediate idea what she could do instead. Castle may have enough money to support them both, but she didn't want to be his 'kept woman' or anything like that; she wanted to make her own way _doing_ something...

With nothing else to do to occupy her time, Kate turned on the television, and soon found herself staring at a news report about a football game, only for her eyes to widen as the entire stadium suddenly collapsed in on itself, before the camera focused on a man dressed in a mask and a fur-lined brown jacket...

The words the newsreader was saying as he explained what had taken place the previous night barely even registered to Kate as she took in the image on the screen before her.

 _Bane_ was in Gotham City...

Taking in the image in front of her as Bane casually explained that there was a nuclear bomb active in the city before he shot the only person alive capable of disarming it, Kate couldn't believe that things had become this bad in Gotham that quickly.

 _God_... she should have recognised Bane from the description in the news report; who else would wear a mask in a group of thugs and have the skill to coordinate an attack on Gotham with such precision that even Batman couldn't capture them?

Scanning the article, she was only slightly surprised at Bane's 'ultimatum'; cutting Gotham off from the rest of civilisation certainly sounded like the perfect way to prove that her father had been correct in his decision to destroy Gotham by essentially undoing all the good that had been accomplished in the last eight years.

As for which Gotham native had control of the detonator...

Kate hated to even think about what she was about to be dealing with when she got there, but if she wasn't going to have to come face-to-face with her sister, she'd be _very_ surprised.

Nyssa's story was one of the reasons she'd accepted the need to live apart from her father; he'd only briefly mentioned the wife he'd lost to that dark prison due to the machinations of his enemies- she'd learned more details as she'd grown older, but the information she'd received about the situation was still relatively limited-, but what she had heard about her sister's dedication to her friend during his time in prison had both moved and disturbed her; Bane's actions to protect her sister were appreciated, but she knew even before she had undergone her training at the academy that you didn't become that strong or dangerous in the most feared prison on the planet without picking up some highly disturbing personality traits.

She'd had such hopes that her sister had moved on from her past when she'd seen pictures of Miranda Tate after she was added to the Wayne Enterprises board of directors- they'd never been close growing up, but Nyssa was still her sister-, but Bane would never attempt something on this scale against the city where Nyssa lived without her explicit approval to do so.

And if Bane and Nyssa were working together again... with Nyssa the daughter who was always more dedicated to the objectives of her father's work in the League where he had respected Kate's desire to uphold his mission in her own way...

There was no way to know what had happened to Bruce Wayne, of course, but Kate knew her sister and her sister's friend relatively well; they wouldn't mount an operation on this scale in the city guarded by Bruce Wayne, the Batman and the star pupil of Ra's al Ghul, unless they were _certain_ that he couldn't interfere.

She would give Bruce a few days to take action- it was always possible that he'd managed to trick them somehow-, and then...

Despite the grim nature of what she was contemplating, Kate smiled.

Then, when she knew what the situation in Gotham really was, one way or the other, she was going to take steps to arrange a little 'family reunion' with her sister...


	3. The True History of Kate Beckett

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another jump forward, this one of a few days or so; hope you like it as I begin to explore how this story will diverge from canon...

Looking back, Richard Castle would never know why he'd chosen the course of action he'd chosen to take on that day. With Alexis and his mother away to prepare for Alexis's departure for college- they were spending a few days checking out some of the rooms near the campus to determine what means of transportation would be more practical, that kind of thing-, he'd been looking forward to finding some time to spend with Kate on her own, but when he'd come home after dropping off the last Nikki Heat book, he'd been surprised to come home to find Kate packing a large bag, grabbing various items ranging from clothing to food and sticking them in one of those massive suitcases he'd acquired during one of his 'post-opening-week spending sprees', when he received a new influx of money and wanted to do something with it.

"Uh... Kate?" he asked, looking awkwardly at her as she looked up at the sound of the door opening. "Something I should know about?"

For a moment, as her gaze alternated between the half-filled bag and him, Castle wasn't sure if he was expecting her to ignore his request or answer it, but then she came to a decision and looked at him resolutely.

"Rick," she said to him, with an emotional earnestness in her voice that he only ever heard from her when she was discussing something intensely personal to her own life, "I need your help."

"With what?" Castle asked, looking back at her in confusion; judging by her expression, whatever she was about to ask him for was something that he _could_ help her with- which ruled out getting her job back; his friendship with the Mayor wasn't _that_ good-, but at the same time it was something that she wasn't sure he _would_ help her with...

"I need to get into Gotham City."

If it had been any other situation proposed, Castle liked to think that he would have been able to come up with a joke about how one of the things he loved about Kate was her continued ability to surprise him.

As it was, upon hearing that she was intending to go _into_ the city that had just been virtually cut off from the rest of America and was the location of a ticking nuclear bomb, Castle was ashamed to admit that his first thought was that Kate was suffering from some kind of mental breakdown.

"You _what_?" he said, looking incredulously at her. "You're telling me you _want_ to go there-?"

"Because I have to," Kate replied, looking at him in solemn contemplation for a few moments before she took a deep breath and continued to speak. "I haven't been... entirely honest with you, Castle."

"About what?" Castle asked, his mind flashing over and discarding the worst-case scenarios; she didn't love him, she was suffering some terminal illness, she was leaving him and going back to the NYPD, she'd been on the take since he'd known her...

"My name isn't Kate Beckett," Kate said, throwing all of Castle's guesses completely out of his mind; he'd been anticipating a secret from her past, but not something so fundamentally simple but simultaneously mind-blowing. "I mean, it's _legally_ Kate Beckett, but I wasn't born with that name."

"What... were you born as?" Castle asked after a momentary silence, Kate giving him time to process the news while he tried to work out the most appropriate response to such an unexpected bombshell.

The idea that Kate Beckett had changed her name was strange on its own, but the possible explanations for why she'd decided to bring it up now- to say nothing of why she'd have done something like that in the first place, or why someone had done it for her if she was too young to do it herself- were _not_ encouraging...

"My birth name was Talia al Ghul," Kate explained, still looking solemnly at him in a manner that made it clear that this wasn't the end of the matter. "My mother was Johanna Beckett, but Jim Beckett was my uncle rather than my father; my biological father is Ra's al Ghul."

"Ra's al Ghul?" Castle said, shock at this latest news cutting off any attempt his mind might have made to make some kind of quip, his mind momentarily racing to place the name's origin before he gave up. "What kind of name is that?"

"Arabic," Kate replied grimly. "It means 'the Demon's Head'."

"Uh... interesting name," Castle said, clearly stuck for any other response he could make to such a revelation.

"It suited him," Kate replied grimly. "He was... the best description of him would be a vigilante terrorist; he was known for taking the law into his own hands on several occasions, killing those who had committed crimes and escaped punishment for various reasons, and he had assembled a cult of followers who were dedicated to his mission."

Castle had no idea what he could say to a revelation like that, so he didn't bother saying anything.

Kate Beckett's biological father was basically a terrorist?

Once again, a revelation that would have been 'cool'- in a twisted sort of way, anyway- from anyone else in any other situation just became twisted when he heard it revealed in this manner.

"My father eventually died when he attempted to destroy Gotham City almost a decade ago," Kate continued, giving Castle a moment to look at her in shock as she noted his momentary expression of intense thought before her real meaning occurred to him. "Yes, it was that incident with the riots and the rampages shortly after the Batman's debut; yes, Batman had some connection to my father's organisation in that he trained with them for some time but he rejected their philosophy where their willingness to kill was concerned; and no, I'm _not_ going to tell you who he is."

"Wasn't going to ask-" Castle began.

"I _know_ you, Rick Castle," Kate said, smiling warmly at him for a moment before she turned her attention to the current conversation. "What matters right now is that the current attack on Gotham is the result of my sister attempting to complete my father's last mission-"

"Your _sister_?" Castle interrupted, his eyes widening incredulously at this latest news.

"Yes; my sister," Kate said, nodding firmly at Castle. "She's only my half-sister, of course; she was the child of my father's first wife, who was imprisoned by her father in place of my own as part of a deal to ensure my father's release from prison. My sister's mother was killed shortly after her birth when the prison doctor left their cell door open, but my sister was protected by one of the residents long enough for her to successfully escape from the prison."

"Uh... congratulations to her," Castle said, stuck for anything else he could say to such information.

"Her guardian became a member of my father's organisation, but he was expelled for being too extreme in his methods- which, when you consider some of my father's plans, is saying a _lot_ about how dangerous he is-, and that was pretty much the last I heard of him until I saw him in Gotham on the news a few days ago," Kate continued.

"But- hold on, you mean that Bane guy?" Castle said, looking at Kate in shocked realisation. " _He_ was your sister's guardian?"

"The mask he wears was actually one of her gifts to him; it provides him with an elaborate cocktail of drugs that help him maintain control of the pain he constantly feels due to injuries he sustained while protecting her in prison," Kate explained.

"And... you think your sister's involved in this whole thing with Gotham?" Castle asked.

"I _know_ she is," Kate said, reaching into her bag and removing a small folder, which she opened to pull out two photographs before passing them to Castle. One of them was a personal photograph showing Kate Beckett, apparently in her early twenties at best, standing alongside another woman a couple of years older than her with shorter, darker, slightly curled hair and a rounder face, somehow coming across as a warmer and colder version of Kate Beckett at the same time, possessing a certain edge in her appearance that unnerved Castle in a way that he would have found attractive if he witnessed it in Kate. The other photograph, apparently taken from a newspaper, showed the other woman dressed in a business suit standing outside the entrance area of a large building.

"The photograph was taken at our only real meeting; Nyssa and I didn't really talk much when my mother was alive, as she felt our father's relationship with her was a betrayal of _her_ mother, and after my mom's death we just didn't really agree on anything," Kate explained. "The newspaper photograph is of Miranda Tate, a new member of the Wayne Enterprises board; if Nyssa was going to gain any kind of influence in Gotham City, she'd do it through the biggest corporation in the city."

"And you didn't... mention it earlier?" Castle asked; given everything he knew about Kate's dedication to the law, he couldn't imagine her not warning anyone about a potential terrorist just because the individual in question was her sister. "You know, the fact that their newest member is a member of a terrorist group?"

"Nyssa never really _did_ anything with the League when I knew her- she participated in the training, but as far as I ever heard our father never sent her out on a mission on her own-; when I saw Miranda Tate in the paper I just assumed that she'd abandoned her old connections to our father and decided to make a new life for herself like I did," Kate explained.

"And now you think that's not the case?" Castle asked.

"The only reason Bane would attempt something like this would be if Nyssa arranged it, particularly when he's attacking the city that she's living in," Kate informed him. "My sister was always more focused on my father's goals rather than his mission; once he gave her an order, she was more focused on ensuring that it was carried out without asking too many questions about why he wanted that particular action to be carried out."

"In other words, she's going to want to destroy Gotham because _he_ wanted to destroy it rather than because she wants it to be blown up herself?" Castle asked.

"Exactly," Kate confirmed. "I'm not going to lie and say that Gotham's a perfect city, but it's nowhere nearly as bad as it was when my father tried to destroy it years ago; anything that she does to make Gotham 'prove her point' will accomplish nothing but reflect how civilisation as a whole can stumble in this kind of situation, rather than how Gotham alone is flawed."

"And you think you can help if you can get in there?" Castle asked.

"I have to at least try," Kate replied, staring grimly at the newspaper photograph for a moment before she put it in the folder once more and looked back at him. "She's my sister, Rick; if she has gone this far, I have to stop her now, even if I couldn't do it earlier."

Looking at the cold resolve on her face, Castle knew that there was only one choice to make.

"Then I'm coming with you," he said firmly.

"What-?" Kate began.

"I just need a little time to finish the last 'Nikki Heat', and then I'm pretty much free as the proverbial bird for a year or so; I think I can claim I was taking a prolonged vacation long enough for the two of us to get in there and figure out the lay of the land," Castle said, staring at her with a resolution in his expression hat Kate had only ever seen when his mind was totally made up about something. "This is important to you, and that means it's important to me; Alexis has college now, and mother can keep an eye on her while I'm away, but I'm _not_ sending you into the most potentially dangerous city on Earth right now without me there as well."

After a moment's silence as she stared at him- during which Castle constantly contemplated taking back his sudden ultimatum and discarding that option as soon as it had crossed his mind; he could cope with missing Alexis's first few months at college, but he'd never forgive himself if he let the woman he love go into such a dangerous situation on her own-, Kate smiled.

"All right," she said, smiling slightly at him. "It's not likely that Nyssa's going to want to destroy the city too soon- she'd want to give it time to prove to her that she's justified in what she's doing-, so we should be able to spare some time to prepare... just don't take _too_ long, OK?"

"We'll be in Gotham this time next month," Castle said, nodding firmly at her.

He didn't know where he was going with this sudden decision, he was about to attempt something that re-evaluated every pre-existing standard of insanity and impulsive behaviour that he thought he'd known about himself before now, and everything that he thought he knew about the woman he loved had suddenly changed in a matter of minutes, but he was sure of one thing for certain; he was _not_ going to abandon Kate Beckett/Talia al Ghul to the insanity of Gotham City and her previously-unknown half-sister if there was anything that he could do about it.


	4. Entering Gotham City

As he pulled at the oars of the boat, Castle wished that he could have come up with a more efficient plan than this; rowing into Gotham might be a quieter way of doing this, but it could be _really_ tiring on the arms...

Breaking _into_ Gotham wasn't actually that difficult; nobody was watching the city to ensure that people wouldn't be able to get _into_ Gotham, given that Bane's orders had focused on the consequences of people trying to leave the city rather than the consequences if a couple of independent operatives entered the city. Add in the fact that rowing was one of the most tedious ways to get to Gotham in its current state- most of the docks in the city had been destroyed in Bane's initial attack, and the sea around the city was rapidly becoming too cold for anyone to get there in any kind of comfort-, and Castle was reasonably certain that they'd manage to fly 'under the radar' long enough to reach the city in question.

Getting _out_ of the city afterwards was another matter, of course, but it was one that Kate- he wasn't going to think of her as Talia; she was Kate Beckett to him before anything else- had pointed out they could deal with when the time came; once Bane and Nyssa had been dealt with, they'd have plenty of time to work out how to leave the city (It was always _when_ rather than 'if'; thinking positively was the best they could do in this situation right now).

With Alexis settling in to college and Martha having agreed to run interference for them if anyone came looking for them- as far as everyone was concerned, he and Kate and decided to take off for a few months to explore their new relationship and maybe brainstorm ideas for a new series now that _Frozen Heat_ was virtually completed-, there was no immediate need for the two of them to stay in New York now that Kate wasn't in regular employment, and Gotham was the last place that anyone would expect to find either of them if someone tried to look for them.

It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was the best they could come up with without drawing too much attention to what they were up to; at least this way they wouldn't have to worry about their families being caught in the crossfire of what they were about to attempt...

Finally, with night having fallen hours ago and his arms aching after what felt like days of rowing, Castle felt the end of the boat hit the edge of the coastline of the abandoned city. As the boat pushed up on to the edge of the city, he and Kate hurriedly clambering out of the boat, grabbing their large backpacks of equipment and clothes and heading for the shore before they turned back to kick the boat out to sea; losing it might keep them confined on this island, but it wasn't like they could realistically expect to hide the boat from Bane's men while they were staying in Gotham, and anything they could do to prevent him realising that there was anyone new in the city would be a smart move.

For a moment, Castle and Kate stared solemnly at the boat as it drifted away from the city coastline, their only means of escape from this city departing with it, but then they turned to look at each other, and Castle was grateful to see the resolve on Beckett's face.

They might not have a clear idea of what they were actually going to do now that they were here, but they were in Gotham; they'd just have to take everything else as it happened.

"Where to?" he asked, looking at Kate; for once in his life, he had no idea what kind of story he could come up with to explain what they were dealing with in this situation, so he was just going to have to rely on her training instead of his imagination.

"Firstly," Kate replied, looking firmly at her partner, "we have to find Commissioner James Gordon."

"What?" Castle said, looking at her in surprise; he'd been expecting a more independent approach than something that was fundamentally more difficult to accomplish. "Why him?"

"Well, aside from anything else, there _is_ the practical issue that he's the highest-ranking Gotham police officer left," Kate said, with a slight smile.

"And... you're _sure_ he's the right guy to talk to?" Castle asked; he might have seen Bane's televised announcement of Gordon's written confession of what had really happened on the night that Harvey Dent had died, but that didn't mean it was easy to completely ignore the idea that the man had lied to everyone for years. "I mean, he covered up a murderer for almost a decade..."

"Exactly; Batman trusted him to spread the story that _he_ was the one responsible for Dent's crimes to protect Gotham's faith in Dent, and he kept to that story ever since," Kate said, her tone the firm one she always used when she wouldn't consider hearing any argument to her proposed plan of action. "It might not have been the most... morally appropriate thing to do, but it did the job at the time; right now, what we need is someone who can cope with the difficult decisions we may have to make to solve this problem."

"Uh... point," Castle said, nodding in acknowledgement of her point before looking uncertainly at her. "So... how do we find him?"

"From what the news said, Bane's moving that bomb of his around the streets to prevent anyone identifying its specific location, correct?" Kate said.

"Yeah..." Castle said, nodding in uncertain acknowledgement of her statement; he recalled the news explanation provided about the situation in Gotham, but he was unclear how it related to their current situation.

"So," Kate said, "if we can find one of the truck's he's using for that purpose and follow it, we _should_ be able to find Gordon's men while they're keeping track of the trucks and follow them back to whatever they're using for headquarters."

"Oh," Castle said, nodding in uncertain understanding. "And... you think that'll work?"

"It'll take a lot of patience, but yeah, I think it'll work," Kate said, smiling slightly at him. "Bane probably thinks that there's nothing anyone can do to him, so he won't be as cautious about that truck as he might be; so long as it remains on the move, he's not going to care about who might be standing around it."

"Because he figures that there's nothing anyone can do to stop it anyway?" Castle asked.

"Pretty much," Kate agreed, nodding in confirmation at him before she turned around to look at the city. "Well, come on, then; we've got a city to search and a whole prison's worth of escaped convicts to evade, and we're not going to get anything done standing around here."

Even as he followed her into town, Castle wished she hadn't mentioned the part about the escaped convicts; this situation was nerve-wracking enough without her bringing _that_ issue up...


	5. The Comissioner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A more Bat-centric chapter this time, as we see Richard Castle's first meeting with some characters from the _other_ continuity in this crossover series...

Sitting on a rooftop as she stared at the streets below her, Kate had to admit that they were actually doing a bit better than she'd expected.

While it sucked that they'd spent over a week in Gotham by this point and had yet to make contact with the people that they'd come here to look for, they'd managed to hold their own against the various minor crooks they'd encountered so far, ranging from a few opportunistic muggers to some of the more hardened criminals- she thought that she'd seen a man she recognised as Victor Zsasz at one point, even if she and Castle had taken care to avoid the scarred hitman-, but most of them had been easily avoided, and the exceptions' relatively amateurish combat skills were no match for her father's old training and the tricks that Castle had picked up from his various sources and the training he'd received with them over the last few years.

They might not have actually found her sister or anyone who might be an actual ally in their efforts yet, but at least they'd managed to make some kind of dent, no matter how temporary, in Gotham's ever-rising criminal population...

Still, no matter how much of a difference they tried to make, it never seemed like it would actually be enough in this city. Without anywhere for them to put the criminals they defeated, all they were doing was less use than any kind of band-aid, literal or metaphorical, and there had been no sign of any kind of police support, to say nothing of her continued inability to track down any sign of Batman.

She knew that Bruce Wayne had dropped off the radar, but surely Batman would have done _something_ about Bane right now, even if he didn't know who 'Miranda Tate' really was-

Glancing down from her rooftop surveillance position, Kate's eyes widened as she saw a heavily-armoured truck going past, a large jeep in front and behind it that were obviously intended to be escorts, with her gaze narrowing as she noticed a dark-haired man pressed against the wall of an alley along the truck's route, turning around to make a mark of some kind on the wall beside him...

As she strained to make out more detail about the face of the man in question, Kate's eyes widened as he turned in the right direction to give her a clear view of his face.

 _John Blake_.

He might have been listed only as an officer in the files on the Gotham City Police Department that she'd studied back at Castle's apartment in preparation for their entrance to Gotham, but there were rumours that he'd been promoted to detective shortly before Bane's attack- the resulting loss of communication lines between the city and the rest of the world meant that some of the city's primarily internal paperwork hadn't been completed and fully registered with non-Gotham-based officials-, and the fact that he was still active in a situation like this said something about him.

"Castle!" she said, turning to look urgently at her partner where he was studying a different part of the city.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking round at her curiously. "Seen something?"

"Possibly," she said, indicating the street where she'd just seen Blake, the young man in question already looking around himself as though checking his surroundings. "I can't be certain, but I'm _pretty_ sure I recognise that guy from some of the files on Gotham's police."

"Really?" Castle said, looking at her with a hopeful smile. "Then-"

He didn't even have time to finish his sentence before Kate was on the move, hurrying after the figure she'd identified as Blake as the young detective began to run down the alley she'd seen him in, leaving Kate with no other choice but to follow him, only peripherally aware of Castle as he hurried to keep up with her. Fortunately, the grounded detective was sticking to the back alleys and lower buildings as he ran, which made it comparatively easier for Kate and Castle to jump from rooftop to rooftop in pursuit of Blake- the gap between buildings was short enough for them to jump it so long as they kept up a good speed, and they could remain within visual range of Blake without too much trouble, while also being far enough aware for him to not see them.

After a few moments of running, Blake finally came to a small door in the back of a building that looked like it had been abandoned since at least a few months before Bane's attack, Blake slipping into the door as Castle and Kate came to the edge of the roof.

"Going in?" Castle asked, looking over at her with a slight smile.

"Naturally," Kate said, smiling back at him before she walked over to a nearby fire escape and began to climb down towards the street, Castle just behind her as they clambered down the ladder. Reaching the bottom, Kate waited for Castle to join her before she walked up to the door and casually opened it- it looked like the lock had been broken in whatever circumstances led to this place being abandoned, and they obviously couldn't get a replacement in Gotham's current state-, finding herself staring down two gun-barrels as she did so.

"Hi," Kate said, smiling politely at the two men with guns standing on the other side of the door, her hands raised in a non-threatening manner as she stood protectively in front of Castle; no matter how many little talents he had, if these people looked like they were about to turn violent, she was better equipped to deal with the potential threat than Castle was. "I'm here to speak to Commissioner Gordon."

* * *

  
After the expected cursory search had been carried out and their few weapons removed- on the bright side, Kate doubted she'd have much trouble getting the weapons back later; it wasn't like Gordon's men could afford to discard anything of value in Gotham's current condition-, Kate and Castle were taken deeper into the building, eventually being shown into a small room with one inhabitant and a large map of the city behind him, their two guides/guards taking up position outside the room's thin door.

Kate had to give the guards credit; they were giving her and Castle the illusion of privacy to talk with Gordon, but the walls and door were thin enough that any attempts to physically attack him would be easily heard, and there was enough space between them for Gordon to produce a weapon if they should try and charge him.

"Commissioner James Gordon?" Kate asked, looking at the older man in glasses as he stood up from behind his obviously makeshift desk, a strength and certainty in his manner despite his slightly shaky stance (If she recalled the news reports correctly, Gordon had been in hospital shortly before Bane's attack; the fact that he was active already did him credit).

"Yes?" he said, looking at the two new arrivals in an inquiring manner; Kate had refused to tell anyone else who she and Castle were and what they were doing here until they'd spoken to Gordon directly. "Who... what do you want?"

"My name is Kate Beckett, formerly of the NYPD, and this is my... partner, Richard Castle," Kate replied, indicating the man standing beside her; hopefully she could avoid too many questions about Castle's name, given that it was unlikely anyone could look him up even if they found it familiar. "We're here because I know where Bane came from and who he's working with."

"You do?" Gordon said, looking at her in surprise after a briefly suspicious glance at Castle; Kate guessed that he vaguely recognised her partner's name but couldn't immediately place the context of his knowledge. "And... how did you come by that information?"

"Because he's working with my half-sister," Kate said, looking solemnly at the older detective, hoping that Gordon lived up to what she'd heard and deduced about his reputation.

To his credit, Gordon didn't do what a part of Kate had worried he'd do and pull out his gun to point it at her; he just stood there, staring silently and contemplatively at her for a moment, until he spoke again.

"Care to explain exactly _how_ you know that?" he asked at last, looking at her in a neutral manner that effectively concealed his thoughts from her. "We still don't know that Bane's working with anyone..."

"My father- the parent I share with my sister- was Ra's al Ghul," Kate began, looking directly at Gordon as she spoke; if the situation had been less serious, she would never have been this open with someone she'd only just met, but this wasn't the time to worry about that. "He was the original leader of the League of Shadows, the organisation that Bane currently leads, but Bane was expelled years ago for being too extreme- as well as various personal conflicts that are not relevant right now-, but my sister remained in contact with him ever since, preparing him for the moment to act. I'm only guessing about how and when it happened, I should stress, but after Batman left the League-"

"Batman was one of... _these_ guys?" Gordon said, looking at Kate in shock with an edge of anger; evidently he didn't like the idea that Kate was implying the man he'd trusted to help him save Gotham had been involved in the group responsible for its current state.

"In a sense, anyway," Kate replied, looking solemnly back at her. "Batman was my father's prized student in the League for many years."

"He _what_?" Gordon said, looking incredulously at her. " _Batman_ was-"

"He trained with the League in the belief that they would help him fight injustice, and learned a great deal of skills from them, but left the League when he was called upon to complete his final test of initiation as he refused to kill a criminal," Kate explained. "Batman's association with the League has been officially over ever since, and the League itself virtually dismantled after they were responsible for the attack on Gotham shortly after he began his career, but Bane was able to re-organise the remaining members of the League under his authority to prepare for this new attack on Gotham city; they perceive themselves as completing my father's work."

"And you don't?" Gordon asked, demonstrating the healthy scepticism of any cop as he looked back at her, clearly evaluating the worth of her next words.

"Gotham has already experienced a great deal of progress in the last few years; I feel comfortable saying that it's nowhere near as bad as it was when my father tried to destroy it," Kate replied, looking solemnly back at Gordon. "I never participated in my father's missions- we parted ways due to a difference of opinion many years ago, motivated by personal factors that are not relevant right now-, but I have made my own life away from his views, and I will not allow my sister to corrupt everything that my father sough to stand for by destroying this city merely to prove him correct."

Gordon looked at her for a moment, a contemplative expression his face, before he smiled and nodding in acceptance of her explanation.

"So... how do you know your sister's here?" he said at last. "What makes you so sure Bane isn't acting alone?"

"My sister is Miranda Tate," Kate replied.

Gordon could only blink at that news.

"Huh," he said, as though the previous news had knocked all of the shock out of him. "Wasn't expecting that."

"You're taking this that simply?" Castle asked, looking at Gordon in surprise. "I mean-"

"I _do_ know who you are, Richard Castle," Gordon said, looking at the author with a slight smile. "I've heard a few stories about your recent activities with the New York Police Department; I take it Detective Beckett here is the inspiration for Nikki Heat?"

"Only loosely-" Kate began (She still couldn't believe that scene in _Heat Wave_ where Nikki fought off an invader in her apartment while naked).

"I assumed as much," Gordon said, smiling briefly at her before turning his attention back to Castle. "The point is, I don't think even you would go to all the trouble of breaking into the city at a time like this to lie to me about something this big, and nothing I've read suggests that you'd be involved with something like this in the first place; since the idea that you'd lie about something like this is ridiculous at best, I'm going to assume you're telling the truth unless something happens to convince me otherwise."

"Thank you," Kate said, smiling gratefully at Gordon before she continued speaking. "Now that you know why I'm here, we need to talk more about what's going to happen now."

"I take it you came here first because you don't think a direct confrontation with your sister would work?" Gordon asked.

"As much as I would like to show my sister the error of her ways, she didn't spend this long establishing an identity in Gotham without being completely convinced that she was doing what she should be doing," Kate replied grimly. "I may know her, but she and I spent so little time together growing up- we are only half-sisters, and my mother had an established life that she refused to leave- that I cannot guarantee any accuracy when trying to guess how she will react if we confront her directly, and then there is the possibility that she or Bane will have contingency plans in place..."

"So... what?" Castle asked, looking at her uncertainly. "I mean, I _know_ you didn't come here just to pass on a message..."

"I didn't," Kate said, nodding in agreement at his assessment of her character before looking back at Gordon. "What we need to do now is let her think that she still has the upper hand of anonymity, maybe feed her some false information to make her think that we trust her..."

Her plan was still a tentative one, but in the end it all hinged on one question that she still hadn't worked out a means of finding the answer to; where was Batman in this whole mess?


	6. The Cat and the Cop

Standing in front of the apartment building, Kate wondered why she was doing this.

It wasn't that she doubted Blake's word- what he'd subtly revealed to her without actually saying anything definite had been virtual proof that he knew who Batman was under the mask, with his little comments about Batman's wealth and the pain he'd endured, she was left fairly certain that he could be counted on with the other facts revealed-, but that didn't explain why she was doing this; talking with this woman probably wouldn't give them anything new to work with, considering everything that she'd heard from Blake...

Then again, she might be able to think of a different approach to use when dealing with this woman than what Blake did; all that Blake really knew about Batman was who he was and a vague idea about why he did what he did, whereas Kate knew exactly why he had donned his costume in the first place and where he had gone to receive his training, even if each of them knew far more than almost anyone else in this city could know about Batman (Personally, Kate didn't entirely believe the idea that Gordon didn't know who Batman was- he struck her as the kind of investigator who was too good at his job not to have put together at least some of the clues; he probably just didn't bother following them up to avoid putting himself in a difficult situation, particularly after he had been helping to protect his friend from the consequences of their lie-, but that issue wasn't important right now).

Still, regardless of her reasons, nothing changed the central fact; with no way to know what Nyssa was planning to do with the bomb and Gotham, they were facing an increasingly greater threat with every day that went by, and this woman was the only person who might have the information she needed that wouldn't result in her exposing her presence in this city before she was ready to do so.

She hadn't even allowed Castle to accompany her, preferring to try and catch this woman off-guard in a one-on-one confrontation rather than deal with her partner; he was currently back at the makeshift precinct with Gordon and whatever group he'd managed to assemble in the absence of the main police force, going over what they knew about Bane's forces and offering his usual 'out-of-the-box' approach to dangerous situations to help them work out what they might do to strike back against him.

Castle might be good in a fight, but against someone with this woman's implied level of skill, she didn't need the potential distraction he would provide; his amateur skills wouldn't compare against someone this potentially dangerous.

Thoughts on Castle's absence ended as a figure walked out of the building that could only be the woman Kate was here to meet. As she paused to close the door, Kate walked up behind her, smiling politely but firmly as the other woman turned to look at her, revealing a thin but smooth face surrounded by thick long brown hair and a well-developed body whose excellent condition was only slightly concealed by the loose clothing she wore.

"Selina Kyle?" Kate said, looking at the other woman.

"Who's asking?" the woman asked, her stance becoming slightly defensive as she stood in the doorway.

"Someone who knows that you were there when Batman vanished," Kate said.

For a moment, the woman's eyes widened in shock at this news, but she quickly lashed out with a kick that Kate only just managed to deflect, following the block up with a punch of her own that mainly worked because it caught the other woman off-guard rather than any definite skill; Kate had learned long ago how to make quick assessments of other fighters and their skill level, and this woman had some interesting skills even if she didn't appear to use them against hand-to-hand experts as often as she might. After a few moments of dodging each other's blows, Kate grabbed Selina's foot as the other woman kicked out at her chest and lifted it up into the air, forcing Selina into a mid-air flip that ended just in time for Kate to kick her in the chest. As Selina staggered backwards, momentarily winded by the kick, Kate grabbed her by the shoulders and marched her back into the building that she had just left , Kate opening the still-unlocked door and forcing the woman to sit down on the stairs inside it before she could regain enough oxygen to fight back.

"OK," Kate said, crouching down slightly to better look at the now-sitting woman as she spent some time gasping for air. "I know this is... probably not the best way to do this, but as I was _about_ to say before you started attacking me, I need to talk to you about what Bane did with Batman; once you've answered my questions, so long as you don't tell Bane I'm here- and I don't think you will-, you're free to do what you want."

"And what... makes you-?" Selina began, even as she continued gasping to replenish the air that Kate had forced from her lungs previously.

"John Blake told me he spoke to you," Kate said, smiling slightly at the other woman's sudden start at that new information before she continued. "I'm not here to arrest you- if nothing else, there's not much point-, and I'm not here for revenge; all I want to know is if Bane said anything about what he was going to do with Batman after the fight was over."

"No," Selina replied, looking solemnly back at her, her breathing once again under control. "I didn't hear anything about his plans then... well, nothing that hasn't been revealed by now, anyway."

"Nothing?" Kate said, looking inquiringly at the other woman. "No strange comment about where he was planning to take him-"

" _Nothing_ ," Selina repeated, glaring firmly at Kate as she repeated herself.

It was the resolution in her subsequent stare, more than anything else, that convinced Kate to stop trying to press her luck; in her long experience of questioning subjects, when people looked at you like that, they weren't going to give you any more information.

"I see," Kate said, nodding in understanding before she turned around and left the building, not wanting to reveal her thoughts on this turn of events to the other woman.

The news might be frustrating, but her hopes on this topic hadn't exactly been high to start with; it had been a long shot that she felt worth exploring, but the fact that it hadn't panned out was just one of those things; it sucked, but there was nobody to blame for how things had turned out.

Besides, with no evidence to suggest that he had some other plan in action, it wasn't that hard to work out where Bane might have taken Batman.

After all, considering his and Talia's history, when they wanted to take someone out of the equation, there was one obvious place where the two of them were the closest thing that territory had to an owner, and therefore the two people the residents would be most likely to feel anything close to respect for.

The Pit...

 _Damnit_ , she thought to herself, only just managing to stop herself showing her frustration at that revelation (Selina might have given her useful information, but she still didn't exactly feel comfortable telling this woman anything that could be used against her later).

Bruce Wayne might be the best student her father had ever had, but if he was trapped in the Pit...

Nyssa had only just managed to escape from there when she was a child, and nobody Kate had spoken to knew exactly how she had accomplished it; what were the odds that anyone in the Pit with the knowledge of how to escape like Nyssa had wouldn't have done so already?

Of everyone alive today, only Nyssa really _knew_ how to get out of that place- Hell, even her father had failed to accomplish such a goal on his own-, and she definitely wouldn't have given Bruce anything to help him in that regard.

 _Shit_ , Kate reflected, cursing her crap luck.

With no way to get a message to the outside world about what had happened to Batman- even assuming that she knew of anyone that she could contact who would be useful in this situation, to say nothing of anyone who knew where the Pit _was_ in the first place-, this city had effectively lost its best chance of stopping Bane and didn't even know it.

Even the most optimistic part of her had no illusions about her ability to handle Bane in a fight, and even a clash between her and Nyssa would probably result in a draw at best, so what the _Hell_ was she going to do now?


	7. The Daughter and the Clown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by the suggestion of a reviewer on FF.Net, and takes place a couple of months after the last one; hope you like the result (This guy is NOT easy to write, to say the least)

Looking at the city spread out before her, Kate wondered what it said about her that she only seemed to come here when Gotham was in peril.

Admittedly, the argument could be made that it just reflected a flaw in society as a whole- Gotham had done a lot of work on rebuilding its reputation in the last few years, but it had mainly done that work on its own, rather than receiving any help from the rest of the country-, or it could be said that Kate preferred to focus on preserving New York given her own family ties to the city, but that didn't change a rather depressing fact about human nature; people so often only noticed that there was a problem when it was virtually past the point where anything could be done to stop it.

Her father's attack on Gotham had inspired a wave of public interest, and the Joker's crime wave eight years ago had prompted a similar public outcry even before Harvey Dent's death, but when those problems had gone by the rest of America had been content to leave Gotham to cope with its problems on its own. She'd taken the occasional look at the news to see how things were going, but even that had mainly been motivated out of concern for Bruce rather than concern for the city; she'd wanted to know how _he_ was doing, and looking at how his city was coming along was just a necessary part of that.

The fact that she was here now might show that she actually cared- even if she attracted some stares from those who knew who she and Castle were despite their efforts to keep their identities secret; she'd heard some people speculate that they had some secret pipeline out of the city and were planning to write a book about their experiences in Gotham after a few months-, but what did it say about her larger priorities if it took something this drastic to make her take an interest in how far Gotham had fallen?

She and Castle had saved New York at least once in their time as partners- and they may have even prevented World War Three during that whole incident with the sleeper agents attempting to kill the Chinese diplomat's daughter, but she still had her doubts about the feasibility of calculating real-world responses to situations like that-, but their primary focus had always been on their city rather than helping others.

Was it possible that she should consider... expanding her remit when she got home?

After all, it wasn't like she was a cop any more, but she _did_ still have some interesting skills, as well as an intriguing example of what she could do with herself...

Further thoughts on that topic were cut short when she saw someone sneaking along a street, wearing a purple coat and with hair dyed a sickly green colour that set off warning bells in her mind.

 _It couldn't be_...

Then again, it wasn't like anyone actually knew where he was- after the chaos he'd caused in Gotham, special precautions had been taken to ensure that nobody could break him out, to the point that even which prison he'd been sent to was unknown to all but a few and even those few weren't announced-, so it wasn't _impossible_ to assume that he'd managed to escape...

Refusing to wait for clarification one way or the other- she didn't have the time to reach anyone else and if this wasn't the man she thought it was she'd waste others' time for no reason-, Kate ran for the nearest fire escape, hurrying down it as quickly as possible, before she reached the street and began to run after the man in question, only to come to a halt when the man she was pursuing turned to look at her despite her attempts at stealth, revealing a face that left Kate feeling like the blood in her veins had frozen.

She'd never seen even a photograph of this man, and all reports about him had been read after he'd been captured- she'd seen no reason to pay close enough attention to Gotham's criminals knowing that Batman was there to stop them, but after she'd heard about the accusation that Batman had murdered Dent she'd gone over everything related to that incident with a proverbial fine-toothed comb-, but there was no mistaking that face-paint and the Glasgow smile.

 _The Joker_...

Instinctively Kate lashed out with a kick that nearly struck the Joker before the clown neatly sidestepped the attack, a crowbar suddenly appearing in his hand as he looked at her. Unable to draw her own gun- Kate guessed that the bar had been up his sleeve or something like that-, Kate lashed out with a desperate punch, but the attack was intercepted when the Joker struck the arm with the crowbar.

Despite the pain in her arm, Kate took the offered opportunity and grabbed the extended crowbar in her uninjured arm, yanking it out of the Joker's grip and striking him in the side just under the ribcage. The force of the blow sent the Joker to the ground, temporarily gasping for air as the blow expelled the oxygen from his lungs, leaving Kate to tighten her grip on the crowbar and move it into a position just beside the Joker's head, glaring at the other man in a warning manner; he might be fast, but he wouldn't be fast enough to evade her if she tried to hit him in the head with this object.

"Well well well," the man referred to by some as the Clown Prince of Crime said, kneeling on the ground and looking at her with a smile as she clutched at her injured arm while he tried to control his gasps for oxygen. "The big bad bat sends his associates out to get me?"

Kate didn't take long to work out what the Joker meant by that; she and Bruce had been shaped by different sources- Bruce by whatever hand-to-hand training he'd gone through before joining the League of Shadows, her by her training at the police academy-, but they each shared a teacher who'd been a prominent figure in their development, so it wasn't a significant stretch to assume that they shared a similar fighting style.

"You could say that," she said, looking grimly back at the Joker, focusing on not showing the fear she felt at just the thought of facing someone this twisted by keeping the crowbar close to his head; she acknowledged that she was up against a man who had nearly driven the entire city to the brink without any sign of a definite, coherent plan behind everything he did- some of what he'd one could have been a plan and the rest could have been improvised-, but that didn't mean that she was going to just break down in fear. "We don't collaborate much, but we... had the same teacher in a few areas."

"Ah," the Joker said, 'smiling'- as much as his facial condition would allow, anyway- at her in understanding. "Don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me when he'll be back on the scene, would you?"

"All I can tell you is that he's currently being held in a virtually inescapable prison in a location that I couldn't direct you to even if I wanted to," Kate replied- the man before her might be unpredictable, but she felt that she could 'trust' him with that much since it was nothing that Bane's men probably wouldn't know already-, looking resolutely back at the Joker, even as another thought began to occur to her.

Now that she thought about it, even if she would never ask him to help them out officially, there _might_ be another way that she could use this particular encounter to the advantage of her side, rather than just trying to go through all the hassle of keeping the Joker contained so that he couldn't cause any more trouble...

"Sorry to disappoint you, but that's the truth," she said, smiling slightly at the man in the white make-up. "Bane beat you to him."

"In what way?" the Joker asked, looking at her with a curious expression that might have been a smirk if it wasn't for the fact that the scars made it hard to determine what kind of expression he was making with his lips.

"Well, from what I heard, it was all about the contest for you when it came to Batman, wasn't it?" Kate asked, looking back at him with a slight grin of her own as she kept a tight hold of the crowbar (If she focused on the impression that she wasn't _too_ afraid of him, maybe he'd let her off somewhat easily), allowing herself to indulge in some of the more elaborate analogies Castle sometimes used in his absence from the current scene. "He was the order to your chaos, the knight to your mercenary-"

"The dark to the light?" the Joker asked, looking at her with a smirk even as the contemplative expression in his eyes suggested that he was still interested in what she had to say.

"Well, you certainly have a more interesting dress sense than he does," Kate said, indicating the Joker's colourful attire with a slight smile before she looked more seriously at the twisted maniac. "But the point is, in the end, Bane didn't use any kind of finesse or elaborate test to stop Batman; all he did was lure him into a trap and beat him to a bloody pulp."

"Bit basic," the Joker admitted, nodding at her in acknowledgement of her statement. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well... couldn't it be argued that Bane's just trying to enforce his own authority on the city?" Kate asked; she had read as much about the Joker as she could, but whether that information would be any use to her in this situation was another matter. "I mean, it's not the kind of order that Batman wanted to establish, but at least he allowed some liberty; these days, if you aren't doing what Bane wants, you're automatically an enemy of the city with just two versions of capital punishment awaiting you if you're caught."

"True," the Joker said, looking contemplatively at Kate. "So, with that in mind... you're telling me this because you're asking me to... what?"

"I'm just... asking if you'll... cause a little chaos for Bane, along with the rest of us," Kate said, shrugging in exaggerated nonchalance; if this gambit didn't pay off, or if the Joker took what she was 'suggesting' the wrong way, she had few illusions about what would happen to her. "Create a bit of chaos for him to deal with after all the chaos he's given us, shall we say?"

"Stir up the situation for the big man in the mask, eh?" the Joker said, looking amused at the thought. "The Bat's partner, _encouraging_ my work..."

"Just so long as you're clear that this is only a temporary state of affairs," Kate said, knowing that what she was about to say would help her as much as any of her earlier offers, even as she lowered her stolen crowbar; the Joker had received enough food for thought at the moment that she doubted he'd try and attack her now. "I'd prefer you over Bane, but if we meet once this is all over, I want you to know that I _will_ do what it takes to take you in."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," the Joker said, smirking at her before he indicated the street behind her. "Anyway, I'll just go off and find a few little strongholds, shall I?"

"Try around the stadium," Kate added. "I've heard Bane's taken to keeping his weapons in that area."

"Take them off the board, eh?" the Joker asked.

"So long as Bane doesn't have them, that's the main thing right now," Kate said; she would obviously prefer it if the weapons ended up with the GCPD, but she wasn't going to try and issue too many ultimatums to the Joker considering his temperamental state of mind.

"I'll... keep that in mind," the Joker said, grinning at her with his disturbing smile. "Interesting to meet you, Bat-ette."

Kate didn't bother correcting the description as the Joker turned and walked away; she might be asking him for help, but the last thing she wanted was for the Joker to learn her real name.

What she'd just done might not be the safest method of taking action against Bane, but considering the unprecedented situation they were currently facing, she would just have to keep quiet and hope for the best...

 _God_ , she hoped that she hadn't underestimated the Joker's psyche; the last thing this city needed was that lunatic at large once again.


	8. Non-Sisterly Sisters

As far as guerrilla campaigns went, despite her lack of practical experience in such a field, Kate felt that her side were doing rather well in their current efforts against Bane.

While her and Castle's presence hadn't had much in the way of significant impact on how the GCPD's remaining members would have coordinated their resistance to Bane without them, their presence had definitely affected how they were relating to Miranda Tate. Guessing that Miranda wouldn't do anything to undermine their efforts unless she was certain they were a danger to her and Bane, they had occasionally provided her with information about their planned attacks against Bane's forces, taking care to reveal only the smaller operations that wouldn't actually affect their long-term chances for success one way or the other. They'd lost a couple of men in subsequent ambushes, but it had been enough to confirm that Nyssa was acting against them, even if the ambushes themselves could have been taken as bad luck if nobody had known about her.

Still, even with the need to 'play dumb' about Nyssa's real allegiance, fortune was still favouring the GCPD in more public ways. They'd recently recovered a few crates of weapons that had been dumped close to their headquarters, apparently taken from one of Bane's weapons facilities- Kate had naturally not shared her suspicions as to the source of the weapons, even if she'd checked to ensure that they hadn't been tampered with-, but this only gave them more potential firepower without giving them manpower. They still lacked the ability to rescue the cops trapped underground in Bane's initial attack due to their lack of explosives to open an exit or manpower to storm one of the guarded manholes, but it was enough for them to stage a few quick counter-attacks against Bane's men. Castle had actually proven himself to be rather useful at that part, his 'out-of-the-box' thoughts allowing the GCPD forces to come up with interesting new plans of attack that wouldn't have occurred to them on their own; he was actually leading a small team to mount another strike against one of the buildings Bane's men were using as a base (Kate might not like it, but she respected Castle's desire to pull his weight).

On the brighter side, Bane's forces remained the only identifiable villains in the city, which at least gave them all a specific target to focus their efforts on. Most of the Arkham and Blackgate patients had joined Bane's 'army' after he had demolished both during his statement of opposition to the Harvey Dent Act, and the exceptions were being hunted by both sides and therefore left with little opportunity to really take action. The Joker hadn't been sighted since Kate had seen him during her brief encounter- which she hadn't yet even mentioned to Castle-, but she didn't like to consider that issue in any greater depth than she had to; this might be an unprecedented situation, but she still felt somewhat dirty at the thought of what she'd had to do to deal with the Joker.

Not for the first time, she wished that Bruce Wayne was still here- with the truth about Harvey Dent's death now known, the Dark Knight would have made an exceptional rallying point for the anti-Bane movement if nothing else-, but that was just something she'd have to cope with; they were deprived of Batman's assistance, and that was that.

Of course, as Kate walked into the former Gotham Library to meet with her current contact- he'd been in touch with the GCPD on a few occasions to discuss possible weaknesses in some of the more significant tools in Bane's arsenal, but she hadn't had the chance to talk to him in person yet-, she was reminded that Bruce didn't have to be here in person to provide them with at least some kind of assistance.

"Mr Lucius Fox?" Kate said, looking curiously at the older man as she walked into the small side office that had been chosen as their meeting point; she recognised him from previous photographs from the newspapers she'd read while keeping an eye on Bruce's activities, but additional confirmation never hurt, particularly given the nature of the information he claimed to have for them.

"The same," the man replied, smiling politely at her, looking remarkably calm despite his age and the harsh conditions he must have been dealing with in the past few months; some people just seemed to find a way to cope in anything. "And you'd be... I understand your name is Kate?"

"Among others," Kate replied, smiling back at him as she shook his hand. Considering Fox's position at Wayne Enterprises, she'd had her theories about this man's knowledge of Bruce's secret- since Bruce obviously lacked the resources to access or create some of Batman's equipment on his own, he had to have some outside help, and Fox had been the most likely candidate based on her research into the company's employees given his time in Applied Sciences and his connections to Thomas Wayne-, but she didn't want to push them too far, so she'd stick with the definite facts. "Before we discuss anything else, I just want to confirm something; I understand you've been made aware of the… situation… regarding Miranda Tate?"

"You mean that she's in league with that madman?" Fox asked, the smile fading as he looked grimly at her. "Heard it, but not sure I believe it; after everything she's sunk into this company…"

"The better to ensure that Bane has access to everything he needs to destroy this city," Kate replied, looking solemnly back at him. "Believe me, I'd love to believe that my sister wasn't involved in this, but I know her, and I know Bane; there's no way that he could have come to the city where she's made a life for herself and do something on this scale unless she wanted him there."

"Believe me, I believe you," Fox said, nodding at her with a grim resignation in his expression. "I've worked with a lot of liars in my time, and even if I can- apparently- be tricked, I know enough to know when someone's being _really_ honest with me."

"You just wish that it wasn't this way," Kate said, nodding in understanding. "Believe me, I get that; how do you think _I_ feel?"

"Were you close?" Fox asked.

The question actually gave Kate pause for a moment.

Were her and Nyssa _close_ …?

It was actually funny, in a tragic way; now that Lucius Fox brought it up, she realised that she didn't _actually_ regret the situation that she found herself in.

Nyssa was her sister, but when you got past the fact that they shared a father and had shared some of their training sessions with each other, they really had virtually nothing in common, and they'd barely even really spent much time together even before Ra's had died almost a decade ago, each one resenting the influence that their mothers had on their father, each one with their own perspective on him…

"We were sisters," Kate said at last, out of a lack of anything else to say. "We each respected our father, but we had our own interpretations of what he wanted from us and how to provide him with it; Nyssa was always dedicated to his mission even if she disagreed with him personally, where I mostly got along with him as a person but disagreed with his methods, and then there was that mess with our mothers…"

"Your mothers?" Fox asked.

"My sister and I were only half-siblings- we shared the same father-, and with Nyssa's mother having died in captivity while our father was involved with _my_ mother, things were… well, they were strained, to put it simply," Kate said, shrugging helplessly. "I mean, we each resented the other's mother for being something to our father that our own mother wasn't, and then there was our different thoughts on Bane; Nyssa saw him as her protector, but I could never see him as anything other than a cunning animal…"

"Would it be simpler to ask what you _did_ agree on?" Fox asked.

"I'm not sure _anything_ about our relationship was ever simple," Kate said, sighing as she looked out of the small window- the office had been chosen because the limited external view would make it less likely that one of Bane's men would see her and recognise her, but it still provided a good view of Gotham if you looked out of it at the right angle- before she turned her attention back to Fox. "Anyway, this isn't what I'm here for; what have you got to tell me about these external contacts of yours?"

As therapeutic as it had been to discuss Nyssa with someone else, she had to focus on the immediate matter of potential external support right now; she could worry about her relationship with her sister once this was all over.

* * *

  
With the news that Lucius Fox had managed to get in touch with a few of his external contacts outside of Gotham, the GCPD had experienced a fresh wave of hope at the idea of additional support; even if that support would have to be relatively limited if it was going to get in unnoticed, any back-up was better than none in their current condition.

After she'd returned to the GCPD's headquarters to fill them in on recent developments, Kate and the rest of the leaders of the anti-Bane movement had set out on drawing up a plan to accommodate the arrivals. One of the most obvious steps was to ensure that Kate and Castle's presence would remain a secret; Kate would only trust a select few members of the GCPD with her true identity and connection to Bane and Nyssa, and only a few more people knew that she and Castle weren't Gotham natives, but anyone else being in the know would attract too many potential questions that they couldn't afford right now.

From there, it wasn't that difficult to decide that Gordon and Blake would meet with the special ops staff- putting too many of the GCPD's command structure in one place would be foolish under any circumstances-, and from there take the new arrivals to meet Lucius Fox to learn more about the technical details of the current problem; the only thing hampering that potential meeting was how they were going to make such an arrangement without Nyssa becoming aware of it.

"You're sure we can't just… not mention this to her?" one of the younger officers asked, looking uncertainly at the small group who had become the unofficial leaders of what remained of the GCPD as they spoke with their assorted remaining staff. "I mean, we could just say we were keeping it quiet for secrecy's sake…"

"Trust me, if we could get away with it, we'd be trying that as our first option," Blake said grimly. "Unfortunately, given that she's still the official CEO of Wayne Enterprises, it would be natural for Miranda Tate to be involved in a meeting about the bomb, so we can't exactly set up a situation where she's _not_ there without attracting too much attention to it."

"Why do we have to assume that she'll even find out about it?" Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley asked, looking around the room with a slightly offended stare. "Do we really think someone here's going to betray-?"

"It's not a question of willing betrayal, it's just a matter of taking precautions," Castle interjected. "Everything's already pretty much in their court; we can't start assuming that things are going to work out all right…"

His voice trailed off as he spoke, a smile crossing the writer's face as the others looked at him. " _Assume_ …"

"What are you thinking?" Kate asked, looking at him with a slight smile; it might be slightly petty, but she enjoyed the moments when Castle managed to vindicate her faith in him by making a useful contribution to their campaign plan.

"What if… we let Miranda think we made a mistake?" Castle asked.

"A mistake?" Blake repeated sceptically, clearly wondering where the author was going with this.

"Well… look, no offence, but we're not exactly working with the best equipment here," Castle said, indicating the radios that they'd managed to acquire during their struggle to survive and arm themselves against Bane's forces. "Wouldn't it be possible for us to use these things to tell Lucius Fox that the meeting with the special forces is going to be at, say, two twenty-five, but the radio's disrupted just enough that he thinks he hears two _thirty_ -five?"

"With the result that, when she learns anything else, Nyssa will assume that Bane's men attacked too early and the soldiers retreated before they could be caught..." Kate said, smiling in approval at her lover. "Good call, Castle."

"And after that, they'd naturally be quieter and more reluctant to arrange a meeting, so whenever we managed to set something else up, we'd have a reason for making sure Miss Tate didn't have the chance to tell anyone else about it," Gordon said, joining Kate in her nods of approval. "It'll be tight, but it could work."

"And what about the bomb itself?" Blake asked, looking over at the rest of the group. "I don't know if you noticed, but we're running out of time until it goes off…"

Nobody had any answer to provide to that question.

They might have a couple of ideas about how to identify the truck that Bane was using to move the bomb around, but that still didn't give them much chance at disarming it in the time left to them before it exploded…

No matter how Kate looked at it, even if they could rescue the still-trapped cops from the sewers, they needed a rallying figurehead to counter Bane's influence on the city if they were going to stop him.

In other words, they needed Batman, just when Kate was the only one who knew that Batman would never get here.


	9. The Dark Knight Returns

Sitting in the basement that was the closest thing they had to a safehouse right now, Kate stared at the map of Gotham they'd put together depicting the current territorial situation- including markings depicting the path taken by Bane's assorted trucks- and cursed their stupidity.

After all the precautions they'd taken to prevent Nyssa from learning anything genuinely useful or dangerous about their operations, their attempt to make it look as though they were including her in their efforts had resulted in Commissioner Gordon and a sizeable portion of their remaining forces being abducted while participating in an operation that had only ever been intended to be a bluff.

OK, so they'd eliminated that truck as the one carrying the bomb and managed to use some other scanners discreetly provided by Lucius Fox to find the real one, which should give Nyssa an interesting 'surprise' when the time came for them to take action, but that wasn't going to help them rescue Gordon.

That wasn't the only area where they had problems to overcome, of course. The special ops team members who'd come into Gotham remained undercover- their 'bluff' to get information out of Nyssa about the bomb had paid off, with Miranda being forced to agree to a more impulsive meeting to ensure that nobody could pass off information about it to anyone else-, but even their best efforts had so far failed to find any means of getting the cops out of the sewers that didn't involve a potential firefight. Blake was making arrangements to lead a small group of them in a raid on one of the remaining manhole covers that lead to that part of the sewers that night, but Kate didn't hold out much hope for that plan's success; their new allies were good, but Bane's forces weren't exactly stupid either…

"This is it, huh?" Castle said, looking uncertainly at her as he walked in to join her in the part of the basement that was probably the closest she'd ever have to an office here.

"It?" Kate repeated, looking back at him.

"The last days," Castle said, his expression uncharacteristically grim as he sat on the edge of her desk. "I mean, no matter how this all turns out… it's all over soon, huh?"

Kate could only nod in response to Castle's solemn assessment of the situation.

Even if she hoped for the best possible outcome, this wasn't going to be easy; they had a city of people in peril, a bomb that they only had a fragile plan to deal with at best, and a relative fraction of the forces they'd need if they were going to have _any_ chance of defeating the guy responsible for this mess.

"You know," Castle said, still looking grimly at her, even as the slight smile on his face suggested at his efforts to assume a positive approach, "when we try to get anyone out of Gotham…"

"All hell could break loose, huh?" Kate said, guessing where her partner was going with that statement.

Without any way to explain the truth about the bomb to the outside world- the special ops team had been limited in what they could bring, which meant they had no way to communicate directly with anyone in authority about the situation now that getting out wasn't an option-, any attempt to evacuate the city would just put them in another dangerous situation as the guards outside tried to stop them escaping in case it provoked Bane's anger. "Yeah, I'm aware of that, but what can we do?"

"Well, I did have one idea," Castle said, looking at her with a thoughtful smile. "I was just thinking… Ryan and Esposito?"

"Call them in for back-up?" Kate asked, guessing her partner's train of thought.

"More like to be our guys on the outside," Castle clarified. "You know, they make sure nobody on the bridges does anything stupid, maybe get the word out to a few other people that the bomb's going to go whatever, that kinda thing…"

He shrugged. "It's desperate, I know, but doesn't that sometimes work?"

Kate had to acknowledge Castle's point; it might be a desperate situation, but Ryan and Esposito were their best chances of getting outside aid, particularly if they went all-out and managed to get a plane to somewhere in the immediate area; there were a few cities within an hour's drive of Gotham, after all.

They might not have parted company with the other two members of their team under the best circumstances, but if they could provide an explanation of the essential facts, Kate knew that Ryan and Esposito _would_ come to help them.

"OK, that's a good idea, but how are we meant to make contact with them?" she asked, looking critically at him. "We can't exactly make phone calls without Bane's men tracking us, and I don't think a text is a suitable medium for something like this even if it would be more likely to slip under the radar…"

"I found an abandoned building with a working elevator a couple of blocks away on last month's stake-out," Castle replied. "Give me an hour, and I can get to the top, make the call, and get back here; Bane's good, but I don't think he's got missiles or anything particularly long-range in his arsenal, and there's no way he can get anyone there before I get away."

"Good call," Kate said, smiling in approval at Castle's plan, before she turned her attention back to the map she'd pulled out earlier.

Getting the bomb wouldn't be that difficult, particularly since Bane and his men still didn't know they'd identified the right one and would be assuming that they'd be going after the one that Nyssa had 'tagged', but that still left his various men to worry about; there was only so much their small force could do, and she just didn't see how they were going to get the trapped cops out safely no matter what plan Blake came up with…

The sound of an incoming text prompted Kate to glance down at her phone, her eyes widened at the words on her screen.

 _He's back. Meet at the roost_.

With the sender being Lucius Fox, there was only one 'he' that the older man could be referring to, and only one location that could possibly be the aforementioned 'roost'.

"Hold the fort, Castle," she said, standing up and looking over at her partner with a smile.

"Huh?" Castle said, looking at her in confusion. "Why-?"

"Because I'm got something urgent that I need to do," Kate replied, turning to look at Castle so that he could see the resolve on her face. "And with Gordon and Blake gone, I need to know that there's someone I can trust in charge back here."

She didn't like being so vague with her partner, but she could almost predict with absolute certainty how he'd react if he knew that she was heading off to meet Batman, and, as much as she might love having him around, this was one conversation she'd definitely prefer to have in private.

Their greatest asset was back in the game…

* * *

  
Bruce almost hated to jinx it, but so far his plan to get into Gotham had been going rather well.

Not only had he managed to get into the city itself by stealing a boat and rowing to the coast- it looked like that was one method of access that nobody had bothered to keep a particularly close eye on, probably because they assumed that anyone attempting it would try a faster method that would be easier to spot-, but tracking down a means of gaining access to Fox had been comparatively simple once he found his way into the city; Selina Kyle's morality might be a bit questionable at times, but her skills were anything but, considering how quickly she'd managed to find Fox's current location and get them both out afterwards.

Fox had given the impression that there was something else he wanted to tell him, but so far he had been content to follow Bruce's lead as they collected equipment from the secondary Batcave under the penthouse before they'd come here; Fox's attitude suggested that he'd been fully aware of the Bat's location even without Bruce's guidance.

"She fly OK?" Fox asked, as he worked to remove the EMP guidance mount that they would need to disable the bomb.

"Yeah," Bruce said, leaning against the cockpit as he looked at his friend, "even without the autopilot. Thanks."

"Autopilot?" Fox said, smiling as he removed the small box that he'd come here to collect. "That's what you were there for."

"I don't suppose you could help me find Commissioner Gordon now that we're done?" Bruce asked, as he closed the cockpit and walked around to join Fox.

"He's been captured by Bane's men already," an unexpected yet familiar voice suddenly said from the stairs that they'd just ascended.

"What… Talia?" Bruce said, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of Ra's's other child standing on the edge of the roof, Gotham City spread out behind her. "What are you doing here?"

"What else?" Talia replied, looking grimly at him. "I'm here to help you stop my sister."

"Oh- your _sister_?" Bruce said, his theory about Bane's identity as the son of Ra's al Ghul suddenly brought to a crashing halt with this news. "But… but _Bane_ -?"

"You were kept in the Pit and heard the tale of the child's escape, correct?" Talia said, still looking solemnly at him, leaving him with nothing to do but nod at her question. "Bane was her guardian in the Pit; he helped to protect her until she was able to escape and reunite with our father. By the time they got back to the Pit to rescue Bane, he had already sustained such terrible injuries in the Pit that doctors were required to create the mask to help him cope with the pain from his injuries. Our father trained him in the League at my sister's request, but he eventually expelled Bane, even if they will each give you different reasons for it; my father claimed that Bane was nothing more than animal whose only skill lay in destroying what he was pointed at, but my sister claimed that he resented Bane for reminding him of his failure to protect his family."

"And… where is your sister?" Bruce asked, already guessing what response he'd receive even if he wanted to deny it.

"She's Miranda Tate," Talia replied grimly. "Who else would she be?"

"Nobody," Bruce replied, shaking his head solemnly.

Introduce the idea that Ra's had a daughter rather than a son, and Miranda was the perfect candidate; her position at Wayne Enterprises would provide her with access to all the resources she needed to help Bane's efforts, along with easy access to Bruce himself, allowing her to perfectly evaluate an appropriate time to attack the city and the man that had caused her father's death when it would actually _hurt_.

He might have been vulnerable for the last few years, waiting in the manor out of a lack of anything else to do, but after what he'd done to her father, anyone willing to go to these lengths just to kill him would want to _enjoy_ his demise. It was like this one book he'd read during his isolation- he'd abandoned going out, but had turned to literature as a means of taking up his time-; a serial killer seeking revenge on the man he blamed for destroying his family, after learning that the man wanted to kill himself already, had created a scenario where his target would want to live so that he could actually lose something when he was killed, rather than the guy giving his victim what he wanted by killing him.

"She's telling the truth, Mr Wayne," Fox added, looking grimly over at Bruce. "We set up an operation to identify the truck carrying the bomb, and Miss Tate deliberately tagged the wrong one; there's been a few other operations that she's pretty much sabotaged, but nothing that couldn't have been explained as coincidence or a bunch of Bane's guys just being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I… see," Bruce said, biting back the initial need for denial- Talia had known his true identity for years and never done anything to use that against him, where Miranda Tate's true identity at least explained the ease with which Bane had infiltrated Wayne Enterprises to get what he was after- as he looked at Ra's's other daughter. "And… you're helping us against her?"

"My sister is dedicated to completing our father's work without concern for his goals, Bruce; I believe in his mission, which I believe is best supported by allowing Gotham to continue as it has," Talia replied. "This city has made its mistakes, but the lie of Harvey Dent and your inspiration as the Batman have given it a chance to be better than it was… and even if this was the city it had been when my father attacked, there are still innocents here that must be protected."

"Thanks," Bruce said, smiling at her before his expression became more serious. "Now, if Gordon's in trouble, rescuing him should probably be my first priority; if he's been captured, what are they going to do to him?"

The news about Miranda was a bit of a shock, but at least he had time to process it; with Talia and Selina on his side, he might just have a chance after all…


	10. The Writer and the Bat

Standing on the rooftops of Gotham, shivering in the cold- he'd brought what he could, but there was only so much that you could pack when going into a situation like this, and that was before you recognised the limits of what clothes could do for you when you lost so many other creature comforts-, Castle could only pray that this would work.

He'd been taking care of the phone as best he could, considering the circumstances, but that didn't mean that he could just ignore the human element of what he was about to try; it had been months since he'd spoken to either of the two people he was about to call, he had no real idea how they'd react to what he was about to ask them, he didn't even know if they were talking to _each other_ right now…

But when the stakes were this high and this many lives were at risk, he _had_ to try.

Besides, there was no way they'd be petty enough over how they'd left things last time to let an entire _city_ get blown up because they were mad at him…

Dialling the number, Castle hit the 'call' button and waited for a few moments, praying for a positive response from this desperate effort, until the ringing ended with no sign that the call was to be rejected.

" _Hello_?" the familiar voice said at the other end of the line after a moment's pause.

"Esposito?" Castle said.

" _Castle_?" the detective replied, surprise in his voice more than anything else (Much to Castle's relief; considering how things had been the last time he and Esposito saw each other, he'd been anticipating needing to call him a few more times before Esposito deigned to listen to him). " _What are you_ -?"

"Look, there's no time to explain everything, but you have to listen to me," Castle said hurriedly. "Kate and I are in Gotham City."

" _I'm sorry; you're in_ Gotham?" Esposito said, incredulous anger in his voice at that news. " _What the hell are you two doing_ -?"

"Like I said, that's a long story and this isn't the time to talk about that," Castle interrupted. "What _is_ important is that the bomb Bane told everyone about in that announcement of his is going to go off tomorrow regardless of what anyone does to the city; Kate and I are working on getting everyone out of here, but there's only so much that we can do without outside help. We need you and Ryan to get to the main bridge and deal with the guards they've posted there before noon tomorrow; if we can get some of the people with potentially itchy trigger fingers out of the way on the outside, our back-up can work on evacuating the city."

" _Uh… right_ ," the detective said, sounding uncertain about the instruction even as he didn't seem to be explicitly rejecting Castle's instructions. " _I… look, Castle, I get that this is serious- you'd never lie about something like_ that- _but this isn't exactly_ -"

"If you're worried about the costs of getting here, I'll cover it," Castle said, quickly reeling off an account number and sort code to the cop; remembering numbers would be child's play for his old colleague (Were they at a point where they could be considered friends after how their last case went down?). "Get whatever you need from that and get the first plane ticket you can find; this all goes down tomorrow, and we need all hands on deck if we're going to get out of this."

" _We'll be there_ ," Esposito said, in the firm tone that made it clear he'd do whatever he could to respond to Castle's request.

"Thanks," Castle said. "We'll do what we can here, but…"

He trailed off, not wanting to even consider the possibility that he'd been about to voice, before he finished his sentence. "Just get here, OK?"

As he ended the call and began to hurry down the stairs towards the ground floor of the building, Castle could only hope that his message had been enough; the odds were already stacked against them to a point that it would be virtually impossible to make things worse, but the odds of them finding anything that would improve their chances were almost equally low…

* * *

  
Even as he hurried towards the manhole that had been identified as the most likely location for Blake to use to rescue the still-trapped cops, Castle didn't understand why he was doing this.

As much as he might like to act like one, he wasn't a professional cop, and most of his skills were amateurish at best; he might be able to match Beckett on the shooting range, but he was nowhere near her level in the field, and he wasn't exactly the master of kung-fu or anything like that…

But, on the other hand, if he'd just let this night go by with that phone call his one contribution to events, he'd spend the rest of the night feeling guilty and kicking himself. The rest of Kate's remaining forces- she might deny the responsibility, but with Gordon's pre-existing staff captured Kate was the one in charge of what was left- were busy trying to rally anyone who might have been remaining underground in other parts of the city to prepare for their last assault against Bane, but with his own assignment having required him to be somewhere else and his lack of knowledge of Gotham, he didn't have anything else to do but go for the guy most likely to need back-up.

As he drew closer, he slowed his progress along the streets to limit the possibility that he'd attract attention, taking his time and staying hidden in order to avoid anyone who might be looking or listening at the wrong moment, until he finally came up to a small drop in the ground which his old map of Gotham indicated had once been a road leading to a tunnel before Bane's strike against the city cut off the tunnel completely. Reaching one of the pillars surrounding the upper edge of the road, he immediately spotted Blake, kneeling on the ground in front of six men dressed in the dirty clothing of Bane's mercenaries, one of them pointing a pistol directly at Blake's head.

Castle was just about to try and give Blake a chance to escape by yelling at the men- maybe if they had something else to focus on Blake could take advantage of the distraction to do some damage-, but the plan was cut short before it could start when something tall and black dived down into the middle of the small circle of six, Blake exploiting the momentary distraction as his would-be executioner turned around to leap into action, grabbing the man's arm and hauling him forward as the new arrival almost effortlessly fended off the other five mercs. As the man in black knocked two of his opponents to the ground before kicking another in the chest before they could do anything but stare at him in shock, Castle virtually leapt over the side to join the fray, punching the kicked man in the face before he could get back up, leaving the black man to grapple with one of the men while Castle ran around the two fighters to go after the fifth man. His attention so focused on the new arrival, the other man didn't even notice Castle until the writer had kicked him between the legs, following the devastating blow up with a punch to the face that sent him to the ground.

It was only when he turned to look at the man in black after hearing something fall to the ground that he properly took in the distinctive points on his head and the long cape that hung behind him.

" _Batman_?" he said, grinning broadly at the sight of the man in back, only for his grin to falter when Batman turned to glare at him.

"Who are you?" the Dark Knight said, his voice low and gravelly as he glared at the other man.

"Uh… Richard Castle," the writer said, smiling awkwardly at the man who had prompted Kate to abandon New York to protect this city. "I'm… I came here with… Talia?"

"He's with us," Blake said, nodding in confirmation at Batman (Castle had never been more relieved that Gordon had trusted Blake enough to explain that particular kettle of fish to the guy; he might have wasted too much time explaining who Talia or Kate Beckett was otherwise, and the alias thing was something Kate should explain to this guy herself).

"Good," Batman said, looking at Castle with what he could have almost called a smile before he looked more firmly between them. "If you're going to do this regularly, you should wear a mask."

"We're not afraid to be seen standing up to these guys," Blake said firmly.

"The mask is not for you," Batman responded. "It's to protect the people you care about."

"Good call," Castle said, smiling slightly at Gotham's dark knight out of a lack of anything else to say. Not responding to Castle's comment, Batman reached into a container on his belt and pulled out what looked like a small ball with various silver protrusions on it, passing it on to Blake.

"Count to five then throw," Batman said, before he turned around and began to walk up the road. Glancing at Castle only to be met with equal confusion, Blake turned and threw the ball at the rubble, but only triggered a small explosion that made Castle think of a pop rather than the bang they'd been hoping for.

"Hey!" Blake said, turning to call after the now-vanished Batman. "No offence, but you got something bigger in that belt?"

As though in response to Blake's query, a massive object that reminded Castle of some of the images he'd seen of Batman's old car- it actually looked a bit like a bat when viewed from the right angle, with a cockpit and two turbines/weapons extending out from the front in a wing-like formation- flew up into position at the end of the road and fired at the rubble blocking the tunnel. With an exit now provided, it wasn't long until a group of men dressed in police uniforms began to emerge, hurrying out of the tunnels and back into the outside world they'd been cut off from for so long, exchanging brief words with Blake before Batman came back down the road to talk directly to the detective and Castle.

"What now?" Blake asked.

"All-out assault on Bane," Batman said grimly. "But you need to get people across the bridge."

"Why?" Blake asked.

"In case we fail," Castle said, his expression grim as he spoke for Batman and himself.

"Lead an exodus," Batman said, only pausing to nod in agreement of Castle's assessment before he continued speaking. "Save as many lives as you can."

"Talking of getting the non-combatants out," Castle put in, trying not to flinch as Batman turned to look at him- they might be on the same side, but that glare was _very_ intimidating-, "I just made a call to a couple of friends from out of town; they'll do what they can to get to the bridge and ensure that nobody tries to stop anyone who tries to leave Gotham."

"You trust them?" Batman asked, looking pointedly at Castle.

"Talia and I have relied on them to have our backs for four years, and they never let us down," Castle replied firmly.

Batman simply nodded in response, but Castle decided to chalk that up as a positive confirmation of acceptance and focus on what actually mattered right now; he'd just received confirmation from _Batman_.

"You don't need me here?" Blake asked, reminding Castle to focus on the more immediate threat.

"You've given me an army," Batman replied. "Go."

"Thanks," Blake said, as he began to hurry up the road past Batman.

"Don't thank me yet," Batman replied.

"Well, I might not get a chance later," Blake said, before he continued to hurry along the road, leaving Castle to look at Batman.

"Hold on a minute," he said, as another thought occurred to him. "Commissioner Gordon was-!"

"Gordon and his men are safe," Batman said, looking grimly between them. "Bane and Miranda Tate are at City Hall; we're going to need to mount an offensive to keep his men occupied while Gordon goes after the bomb."

"Hence the need for the army, huh?" Castle said.

"Exactly," Batman said firmly. "I have a contact who might be able to give us another way out at the midtown tunnel; you need to make sure that these men all know the plan before we mount our offensive tomorrow."

"Understood," Castle said, nodding in grim understanding of the other man's solemn request.

Tomorrow morning, they were going to war with the man who'd arranged for the destruction of an entire city in the name of his lover's insane desire to fulfil what she perceived to be her father's dying wish, and their chances of success were questionable at best.

There was no other way to look at it; if they didn't commit everything to this fight, they were _really_ screwed…

Which meant that there was a very real chance that some people wouldn't be coming back.

It wasn't like he wasn't aware of the risks- he'd been close to death more than a few times since he'd started following Kate around-, but there was still a difference between going into dangerous situations and a situation like the one they were about to face, where they _knew_ that someone would die no matter what they tried to do…

But with the fate of the city at stake, Castle was just going to have to do what he did when disarming that dirty bomb; grab the cables and hope for the best.


	11. The Gotham War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To ensure that there is no confusion at this point, when I refer to Talia I'm referring to Kate Beckett, while Nyssa is Miranda Tate; they will be referred to by both names depending on whose perspective is being used at that point in the story

Looking at the assembled representatives of the GCPD advancing on city hall, all dressed in their uniforms and armed with whatever they'd managed to salvage as they faced their challenge, Batman was amazed at how quickly things had changed; he'd only arrived back in Gotham a few short hours ago, and already he had an army at his back.

He had been slightly surprised to see Richard Castle standing alongside Officer Blake, claiming to be with Talia- the idea of the daughter of Ra's al Ghul with a mystery writer of all things felt a bit strange, to say the least-, but he'd put that thought aside; it was unlikely at best that such a man would have known Talia's name by chance, which meant that he had to at least consider the possibility that Castle was telling the truth, and he had to focus on the more immediately priority.

Still, considering the response their efforts had received, his decision had paid off; they had their army to counter Bane's, Miranda- or Nyssa, whatever she wanted to call herself- was still unaware that Talia was there or that he knew who she really was, and they had identified the bomb's location with Miranda none the wiser. Gordon and his team were working on capturing the bomb, and Talia and Castle were heading towards city hall via a side route in the hopes of taking Nyssa by surprise once the fighting started, leaving him to deal with Bane.

It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was the best they had; all he and the rest of the GCPD could do now was make their stand against Bane's army and fight to the finish against a nightmare beyond anything he could have imagined facing when he'd set himself the task of saving Gotham…

" _Disperse_ ," one of the voices said from one of the three Tumblers gathered before his army of cops, Bane's mercenaries gathered behind them. " _Disperse or be fired upon_!"

Hovering just out of sight, grateful for the Bat's stealth feature, Batman simply sat and waited for the first few moments as the police advanced forward, Bane emerging from the doors of the building to stare at his approaching foes, until one of the Tumblers activated its gun and aimed it at the advancing police. Before the gun could fire, Batman lowered the Bat into position and fired at the Tumbler, destroying the large weapon before he flew away to a nearby alley.

With the largest gun disabled, the police were now facing merely conventional weaponry that wouldn't be a significant threat to them on anything more than an individual level, where the Bat couldn't contribute anything more than be a more obvious target for the enemy to shoot at; if he was going to make an impact now, he had to get back in the game as an individual combatant.

With that resolve, he abandoned the Bat as soon as it was securely parked in a convenient alley, quickly hurrying back towards the mass melee now taking place in Gotham's main street as the police struggled with Bane's men, a few fallen bodies already littering the streets as proximity forced both sides to revert back to hand-to-hand combat rather than the guns used earlier; at this distance the possibility of shooting someone on their side was far too high. As he entered the combat zone, Batman quickly took down a couple of Bane's mercenaries with relative ease, but it didn't take long for him to work his way to Bane, the masked man having effortlessly kicked and thrown various cops out of his path as he worked his way towards Batman.

"So," Bane said, his voice still the deep, twisted echo it had been as he looked at his foe, "you came back to die with your city."

"No," Batman replied- and he _was_ Batman now; Bruce Wayne had had his time, and would have it again, but right now Gotham needed Batman more than anything else-, staring grimly at Bane amid the temporary stillness that had settled around them. "I came back to stop you."

With that exchange completed, Bane launched a punch towards him, Batman only just managing to deflect it before countering with his own blow to Bane's face. A second blow from Bane was narrowly parried before it could strike, but Bane's next blow to his face sent Batman staggering, and the follow-up strike to his chest didn't help matters much.

As the fight raged around them, Batman soon found himself forced on the defensive, Bane launching a flurry of punches at Batman that forced him to slowly back away from the advancing warrior, only briefly aware of his central goal as he 'led' Bane towards the steps leading up to city hall. An unexpected kick to the chest knocked him down for a moment, but the Dark Knight was soon back on his feet, deflecting Bane's blows as they advanced to the top of the stairs leading up to the city hall. As Bane pinned his right arm, Batman launched another punch at his face, only for Bane to grab his fist, leaving the two men straining against their foe as they wrestled without motion, glaring intently at each other as they fought for the advantage…

Finally, Batman gained the upper hand by allowing Bane to push his fist away before bringing his now-free arm back up to strike his opponent in the mask, forcing Bane to back away far enough for Batman to strike Bane's other arm with his now-released elbow. Batman's attempt to strike back were interrupted when Bane struck him in the face with a powerful headbutt, sending him staggering backwards for a moment, but he regained focus in time to deflect a couple of punches, following it up with a powerful backhand blow that struck one of the tubes around Bane's face, creating a hissing sound as whatever gas the device was 'feeding' to Bane was disrupted.

Clearly off-balance following the loss of whatever drug the mask was feeding to him, Bane tried to reach up and reattach the damaged tube to his mask, but the new focus brought Batman the opportunity to strike back. Bane attempted to fight back, even managing to pin him to a pillar and begin a beatdown against his armoured chest, but Batman swiftly ducked out of the way, leaving Bane to wear out his knuckles against the pillar for a moment before he turned his attention back to his foe. For a moment, the two simply exchanged blows in front of the doors to City Hall, Bane's punches becoming increasingly random due to the pain caused by the damaged mask as Batman dodged around them, until an opening in Bane's defences gave him the perfect chance to strike, a kick to the other man's chest sending Bane through the doors behind him before he fell to the ground. Walking through the shattered doors, Batman kicked the downed man in the chest- it wasn't entirely sporting, but this wasn't the time to worry about playing fair- before quickly disarming another henchman who attempted to attack him, tossing the gun to the woman he'd known as Miranda.

"Cover the doors!" he said to her, reminding himself of their original plan before his attention was re-focused on Bane; as long as he could still hear Miranda, he had to give the impression that he still didn't know who she was…

* * *

  
As she heard Bruce order Bane to tell him where the trigger was, Nyssa smiled in satisfaction at his misdirected focus.

That was Bruce Wayne all over; so focused on his goal that he ignored all evidence that it was pointless even trying. That attitude had driven him to fight for a doomed city, and it would now condemn him to die with it; his life would have been longer if he had remained in the prison…

Her thoughts were interrupted when someone- how anyone could have come in close enough to disarm her so quickly Nyssa couldn't even begin to imagine- kicked out at her wrist, forcing her to drop the knife that she had been about to use to stab Bruce while he was distracted. For a moment, Nyssa was ready to attack this new arrival as she spun to glare at her attacker, but the glare quickly shifted to confusion when she realised who had appeared.

"Talia?" Nyssa said, looking at the new arrival incredulously.

"Hello, Nyssa," Talia replied, smiling slightly at her sister, dressed in a comfortable but comparatively cheap dark coat and trousers, her long brown hair tied back as they exchanged glances for the first time in more years than Nyssa could remember.

"You came to help?" Nyssa asked, looking at her with a hopeful smile; she must have disarmed Nyssa to ensure that she wasn't deprived of her share of their revenge against the man who killed their father…

"Yes," Talia said, interrupting Nyssa's grateful smile with a punch to the face that sent her sister staggering backwards, one hand raising up to examine her bleeding lip in horror. "I came to help _them_."

" _What_?" Nyssa said, barely registering the low, pained voice of her protector as he tried to respond to Batman's words, the damaged mask increasingly hindering his responses. "But this city _must_ -"

"You were always so single-minded, Nyssa," Talia said, looking pityingly at her sister in the same condescending manner that Nyssa had always found so aggravating; her sister seemed to be convinced that she was stupid regardless of whatever plans she came up with to prove otherwise. "You're so focused on achieving _what_ our father wanted that you've completely neglected the need to think about _why_ he might have wanted it."

"He wanted to destroy the heart of modern corruption-!" Nyssa began indignantly.

"And hasn't that been accomplished already?" Talia asked, still looking at her sister as though pitying her mistaken assumptions. "OK, so maybe _how_ it happened was a bit questionable, but who cares about that so long as the end results are good? The city was safe, and crime was in decline; you had _no_ right to do this-"

"Because _you_ decided to ignore Father's mission, you believe that _I_ should?" Nyssa said indignantly.

"No," Talia replied, glaring at her sister. "I am saying that you should think more about _why_ Father wanted to do something, rather than decide to do something just because he was trying to do it."

"I will _not_ permit you to question our father's mission!" Nyssa retorted. "We have a _duty_ to him-"

Nyssa was so shocked at the fact that her sister struck her that it took her a moment to realise that she really had just been slapped.

"We have a _duty_ to our parents, but that does not mean that we should let their goals define ours," Talia said, staring grimly at Nyssa. "You need to make your _own_ path in life, Nyssa; you aren't going to get anywhere in life by just trying to do what he did-!"

Screaming in rage, Nyssa lashed out at Talia, who only just managed to deflect the attack; clearly, whatever her sister had been up to since they'd parted company, she still had some interesting tricks up her sleeve…

* * *

  
"Tell me where the trigger is," Batman said, glaring firmly at Bane; it wasn't his usual style, but Bane had done too much and attacked him in too personal a manner for him to be comfortable adhering to his usual rules right now. " _Then_ , you have my permission to die."

"I broke you…" Bane said, looking up at Batman with weakened confusion. "How did you come back?"

"You think Nyssa is the only one who could learn the strength to escape?" Batman replied, enjoying the shocked expression on his foe's face at that revelation.

"Yeah," the surprising addition of Richard Castle said from behind them, the writer walking up to look at Bane with a satisfied smirk on his face. "We know about _that_ , too… or did you really think you were the only guy who lucked out a friendship with the daughter of a nutjob with delusions of saving the world by killing people?"

"You do know he's still her father?" Batman said, risking taking his eyes off Bane to look at Castle with a slight smile despite his best efforts to maintain his usual 'mood' as Batman.

"Eh, she's already told me he went too far at times; I don't think she'd dump me for that," Castle said, smiling slightly at Batman before he glanced over his shoulder. Following his glance, Batman noted that Talia and Nyssa were currently engaged in a fight, but although it appeared to be mostly even it looked like Talia had a slight advantage, most likely because Nyssa hadn't been expecting such a fight in the first place. "Actually, talking of family troubles…"

Picking up a discarded gun, Castle dashed over to where the two sisters were fighting, slamming the gun into the back of Nyssa's head just as she had sent Talia staggering with a powerful punch. Unprepared for the attack from the rear, Nyssa was left dazed long enough for Castle to kick her in the back, sending her to the ground with such force that the second impact as her head hit the floor would have almost certainly knocked her out even if the first blow hadn't done so already.

"Now," Batman said, turning his attention back to Bane, the masked man unable to do much more than stare in shock at where Nyssa had fallen, "tell me this; does Nyssa have the trigger?"

* * *

  
"What?" Castle said, looking at Kate with a slight shrug as she stared at him, the ex-NYPD officer gasping for breath after the strenuous fight she'd just been engaged in had ended so abruptly; he knew Kate well enough to guess what her first response would be, so it would be best to cut that off before she could get too caught up in it. "I was fairly sure you were going to beat her, but I just wanted it to be over so we could-"

The feel of something striking the side of his face cut him off mid-sentence.

" _That_ was for interrupting," Kate said, glaring at him with a cold stare that reminded him of her expression in the early days of their partnership.

"What-?" Castle began, only to receive a far more pleasant interruption when Kate leaned over and kissed him warmly.

"That was for caring enough to step in," Kate said, smiling at him as she stepped away, before her gaze turned back to the centre of the room. Following her gaze, Castle winced at the sight; Bane, the man who had terrorised Gotham for so many months, was lying on the ground, gasping weakly for air through his mask, which now had various loose tubes hanging out all around it, clearly in no state to continue doing the task it had been designed for.

Castle wasn't sure if he should be shocked or impressed; from what Kate had told him about Bane's history and the reasons he wore that mask, the guy had to be in a significant amount of pain right now, but he couldn't argue that the bastard deserved it after everything he'd planned to do to Gotham…

"Huh," a new voice said, prompting Castle to turn around and blink in shock at the sight of a woman dressed in skintight black leather sitting on the most elaborate motorcycle he'd ever seen; if it hadn't been for his new relationship with Kate, he would _definitely_ have commented on it. "Bit brutal, isn't it?"

"After what he's done, he can take all the time he wants to die; I won't kill him, but I have no interest in saving him," Batman said, looking coldly at Bane before he stood up and looked at the new arrival, leaving the mercenary to stare weakly up at them. "You came to help?"

"What can I say?" the woman said, moving her goggles up onto her head, giving her a cat-like appearance. "You grow on me."

" _You_ …" Nyssa said, now blinking her way back to consciousness as she slowly got to her feet, glaring at the new arrival. Before she could do more than get rise up on her knees, Kate hit her once again, leaving the woman once known as Miranda Tate groaning in pain as she lay on the ground, before Batman walked over with a couple of handcuffs that he must have had in his belt, quickly using them to bind Nyssa's arms and legs together, leaving her immobilised on the ground.

"Sorted," Castle said, grinning at Kate's sister as she lay on the ground, glaring back at him in obvious rage, before Kate pulled out a roll of duct tape from her pocket and placed it over her sister's mouth.

"Don't leave home without it," she said, in response to Castle's surprised expression, before she looked back at her sister with a cold stare. "You're finished, Nyssa; Bane's not going to last much longer without his mask, and once the bomb's dealt with and Gotham's back in full contact with the rest of the world, I'm going to use every contact we've got to ensure that you're left somewhere cold, dark and depressing for the rest of your life."

"Oh, and by the way," Castle said, looking at the woman- as far as he was concerned, she barely deserved to share a species with Kate, never mind a parent- with a slight smile, "if you're thinking your little 'flood the facility' plan will stop us shutting down that bomb, don't bother even grinning about it; Lucius already disabled the program after you installed it."

"Advantage of knowing there's someone acting as a double agent," Kate explained, as Nyssa looked at them in shock. "We learn to check everything, even the things that we thought were secure from penetration."

The tape might prevent Nyssa from answering, but the glare in her eyes was all the confirmation that those watching her needed to know that they had succeeded in their goal; they'd undercut every plan she might have attempted to defeat them, and there was nothing that she could do about it.

"So… what now?" the woman in black asked, looking at Nyssa in an inquiring manner (Castle wondered who she was, but also knew that this wasn't the time to ask). "I mean, Bane's done for without the mask, but what's the plan for her; lock her up, throw away the key, and hope she doesn't tell anyone who you are? No offence, but that seems a bit risky…"

"Let's just say… we know people who know people who won't ask too many questions," Kate said, looking over at Castle with a slight smile that did little to hide the apprehension in her eyes.

Nobody present bothered to argue with the decision; killing Bane in a fight was one thing, but all of the people present had more than a few issues about killing an unarmed woman, regardless of what she'd done, even without the fact that she was the sister of one of the people present.

It would be a bit of a stretch, but Kate and Castle weren't exactly short of favours and contacts that they could draw on to ensure that Nyssa was locked away somewhere where she'd never be able to harm anyone or reveal her true family history to anyone that mattered;

"So… that's it?" Castle asked, looking over at Batman. "We won?"

"Gordon's men have probably already recovered the bomb by now, and it shouldn't take them long to get it back to its original storage facility for Lucius to return it to normal," Batman said, looking over at the writer with what could probably be considered a reassuring smile if it wasn't for the intimidating nature of the person giving it. "Thanks to everything you were able to tell us about Nyssa's plans… we won."

"We won," the woman in black repeated, looking around at the other two people in the room with a surprisingly warm smile. "Have to admit, I wasn't sure we'd make it…"

"All we need now is to give Gotham time to come back…" Kate said, looking out of the shattered door at the fight still being waged around them; it looked like the GCPD were getting the upper hand- most likely their opponents' dependence on Bane as a symbol was working against the fact that the GCPD had needed to rely on themselves recently-, so as long as things were under control and Gordon and Lucius Fox continued to live up to the expectations they'd created…

It was strange having such faith in people they'd only met a short while ago, but Castle already knew that he could count on the two aforementioned men to complete their part in the current plan.

They'd saved Gotham.

The only question now was where the four people standing in this room would go from here…


	12. The New Knight Dawns

Looking out at the city before her, people and supplies streaming back in as Gotham was finally provided with the resources it needed to rebuild, Kate almost found it hard to believe that it was all over.

Her time in Gotham hadn't been easy by any definition, but they'd managed to make something work, using what resources they had to mitigate the damage that Bane and Nyssa might have been able to accomplish with access to both sides as they would have had if their schemes had gone according to plan. Without Nyssa's deception to throw them off, Gordon had managed to recover the reactor in time to return it to its original storage facility and disarm it before it could explode, Lucius Fox having already begun arrangements to dismantle it to prevent something like that ever happening again.

As far as Bane's army went, most of them had been losing the will to fight even before Bane's defeat became public; a crucial disadvantage of their reliance on Bane as a symbol was that they became significantly less effective when he was taken out of the picture even before they knew how it had happened. As for the masked mercenary himself, while Bane hadn't actually died of the pain caused by his damaged mask, the scale of the threat he posed had prompted the doctors who treated him to keep him on a low level of anaesthetic, just enough to keep him alive without allowing him to recover to a degree that would allow him to pose a threat.

Once contact with the outside world had been established, Nyssa had been transferred to a New York mental hospital, still under the alias of Miranda Tate, with a prescription form filled out that recommended regular drug doses that would ensure limited mobility or speech to prevent her harming herself; Kate had introduced herself as Miranda's half-sister, claiming that the death of their father had led her to have a psychotic breakdown that drove her to 'attack' the city that he had been in when he died as part of some warped mission of vengeance (She had made references to suggest that their father had been involved in the League's attack on Gotham without specifying the extent of his connection to the attack; with what she'd told them, he could have easily been just one of the group rather than the leader).

It wasn't a perfect story, but considering that Nyssa wouldn't really have anyone to back up her side- doctors had already dismissed her attempts to claim that Bruce Wayne was Batman as ridiculous-, Kate was content to leave it alone and work on additional details only if they were needed; she knew from experience that making alibis too complicated tended to increase the risk that they'd be exposed as such.

Reflecting on other criminals active in Gotham, Kate was relieved that the most significant non-Bane-affiliated threat had been dealt with so quickly, as the Joker had been successfully recaptured shortly after the announcement of Bane's capture and imprisonment. Bruce had commented that he was fairly sure the Joker had only returned to prison so that he could give Gotham time to rebuild before he tried to break out again, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and Kate was generally in agreement. The chaotic clown and self-styled 'agent of chaos' was a problem, but he was a problem who followed a certain pattern, and his pattern had been brought to a halt by their actions; it was more than they could have hoped for when this mess began. A few of Bane's mercenaries were still active, but without their leader to coordinate them they were fanatics without a cause, unable to access enough of Bane's old resources to do serious damage and too dependent on him to come up with plans of their own.

Right now, as far as Kate was concerned, her main problem was working out how to account for their almost six-month absence back in New York. They might be able to claim to the public that she and Castle had decided to run off for some time on their own after the stress of writing the latest _Nikki Heat_ had become too much for him, but with Ryan and Esposito aware that they were involved with events in Gotham, and Alexis and Martha fully aware that Castle wouldn't leave _them_ alone without any word for this length of time, they were probably going to have to share the truth with at least those four. Bruce had already agreed to them telling others about his identity so long as the information was limited to those that Kate and Castle both trusted to keep the secret, which at least took one weight off Kate's mind; after what Ryan and Esposito had done for them on such short notice with so little intervening contact, they deserved the truth.

To their credit, both detectives had been quick to take action, not only getting to Gotham in record time, but managing to keep themselves together despite being shaken at what they had discovered on the Gotham bridge; they'd heard all of the reports about Bane's threats to detonate the bomb if anyone tried to leave, but to see one law enforcement officer pointing a gun at another when the other guy was trying to evacuate kids from a doomed city…

If their friends hadn't been able to knock the other guy out before he hit the trigger, things would have become even more difficult; they'd only just managed to reach the guy in time to throw the detonator over the bridge where nobody could use it, giving Blake the chance to get the bus over to the other side.

It might not have mattered in the end, but the idea that they had come so close to dying because one man obeyed the rules, only being saved because two others had broken them…

Kate had a feeling that Detective Blake would go looking for another line of work sooner rather than later after witnessing something like that, and she had a strong feeling that the man who was now standing alongside her would help him do that…

"Thanks for your help," Bruce Wayne said, nodding at her with a slight smile as he joined her in staring down at the city before them, their dark clothing and the position of the sun leaving them well-concealed from anyone who might be watching from the street.

"I didn't do much," Kate said, shrugging slightly as she looked back at the billionaire; Bruce was still keeping his return to Gotham on a 'need-to-know' basis- so far only she, Blake, Lucius, Castle, and Selina knew that Bruce Wayne was back in Gotham, although she was fairly sure that Gordon would be added to that list soon-, and she wasn't even sure yet if he'd want that to be changed to acknowledge his return.

"You kept things together when I couldn't, and stopped everyone making a big mistake," Bruce said, looking warmly at her. "I might have stopped Bane… but you stopped Nyssa."

Kate didn't respond to that, but she knew that Bruce understood.

Regardless of what Nyssa, or Miranda, or whatever she wanted to call herself, had done and/or had been planning to do, and how much she acknowledged that those plans had to be stopped…

Nyssa had still been Kate's sister.

Kate was _never_ going to be comfortable with the knowledge of what she had been forced to do to her closest living relative to save this city, even if she knew that it had to be done if anything was going to survive.

They'd done what many had believed impossible when they saved Gotham; what she'd had to do to accomplish that was something it was better not examining in any more detail than she had to.

The only thing left for Kate to do now was make the necessary arrangements for when she returned to her city…

"You're sure that you want to do this?" Bruce asked, looking at her with a new uncertainty; they'd discussed her plans earlier in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but Bruce seemed determined to make sure she knew what she was getting into. "The kind of life you're choosing…"

"Is the kind of life that gives me what I want right now," Kate replied, looking solemnly back at him. "I've been away from the job too long to expect Gates to take me back even if Ryan and Esposito vouched for me, and I've spent too long dealing with cases where I couldn't follow up with the investigations because legal rules tied my hands; this might be more dangerous, but right now, I can't think of anything I'd rather do."

She might have officially condemned Anne Hastings for doing what she was planning to do, but that had only been because she had believed that Anne had been killing people in her role as a costumed vigilante; when Anne's actions were viewed when considering her as someone who didn't kill, she had to admire her.

Sometimes, as much as she'd like to believe otherwise, legal rules were a hindrance to the pursuit of justice, and there was also the frustration of always getting there after the fact; maybe this way, she'd have a chance to get to some victims _before_ the crimes were committed.

With Bruce's private financial backing- Wayne Enterprises actually wasn't doing too badly after their recent ordeal, what with Bane's files allowing them to replace the company's lost stock and his use of their technology providing a useful 'advertisement' of what they were capable of- on top of Castle's own resources, she might not have an easier time of it than Anne, but she at least had a broader range available to do what she had decided to do.

"How about you?" she asked, looking curiously at her father's former prize student. "Are you sure you're ready to… retire?"

"I've saved Gotham from the League of Shadows, the Joker, and the League's heirs, and provided a catalyst to encourage change for the future; I've done what I came here to do," Bruce said with a smile. "Gotham has a new Batman available in case the need arises, and I've arranged for Blake to receive what additional training he might need on top of what I can provide him by proxy; right now, all I want to focus on is my life with Selina."

"Good luck with that," Kate said, smiling warmly at the other man.

A former thief might be an odd choice for Gotham's Dark Knight, but considering that Kate was dating a crime writer when she was a former detective, she wasn't exactly in a position to call anyone's choice of partners unusual; he'd found someone who accepted him, and that was what mattered right now.

"Just remember what I told you last time," she said, looking pointedly at Bruce. "If your city _really_ needs a Batman…"

"I'll come back," Bruce said, nodding reassuringly at her before directing his own stare at her. "And you'll remember what I told you?"

"I'll let you know if I need help," Kate said, nodding back at him. "And… thanks for getting me in touch with Lucius."

"He knows what he's doing and he's willing to help out people in… our line of work," Bruce said with a smile, before he looked more curiously at her. "You're sure about trusting an author as your back-up?"

"You had your butler; I have my boyfriend," Kate said with a shrug. "He knows what he's doing, and he's got the financial resources to help me deal with anything that I can't just get from you; he's unconventional, but he's good at what he does."

"So long as you're sure," Bruce said, smiling at her. "You'll find the relevant equipment waiting for you when you get back to the address you gave me; you're sure it will be safe?"

"It's a former crackhouse we cleared up shortly before Castle and I came here; nobody would have reclaimed it after the amount of attention it attracted, and Ryan assures me there's been no sign of anyone there," Kate said reassuringly. "It won't be pretty, but it gets the job done."

With those words exchanged, the two shook hands one last time, and then both headed for their respective exists, Bruce heading for the Bat on one corner while Kate walked towards the door leading to the stairs to the ground level.

She didn't know what was going to happen to her next, or if her new strategy would actually play out- Gotham had been so corrupt it needed a violent shock, but New York was dealing with a more average crime flow without any single specific problem-, but she and Castle had a plan, and they were going to at least try it out and see what came next.

Detective Kate Beckett had done what she could for New York.

Now, with Castle as her back-up and Ryan and Esposito to serve as her continued contacts- she _was_ going to make contact with them about this once she had the costume put together-, it was time for the new identity that she was tentatively going to call 'Nightwing'- Castle had suggested it and Kate had admitted that she liked the sound of it- to take on her new role in the city.

With the additional training she'd received from Bruce over the last few days- he might have been out of practise, but a training session of a few hours with Batman was more intense than most people received in several months-, she had a feeling that any assassins her mother's killer tried to send after her or Nightwing would be _very_ surprised…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it; the story has concluded, with Kate planning her new life as NYC's own vigilante while Bruce enters retirement until he's needed again.
> 
> Will I write a sequel?
> 
> No immediate plans to do so, but if the right plot comes to mind…


End file.
